
NEW ENGLAND 



HISTORIC GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY. 



PROCEEDINGS 



ON THE TWENTY-FIFTH DAY OF OCTOBER, 1880. 





Class. 
Book. 



m 



rtr4 



.n 




OLD STATE HOUSE, EEECTED 1748. 



IN THIS BUILDING THE GOVERNMENT OF MASSACHUSETTS WAS ORGANIZED 

UNDER THE CONSTITUTION ON THE TWENTY-FIFTH 

DAY OF OCTOBER, 1780. 



NEW ENGLAND 



HISTORIC GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY. 



PROCEEDINGS 



ON THE TWENTY-FIFTH DAY OF OCTOBER, 1880, 



COMMEMORATIVE OF THE ORGANIZATION OF THE GOVERNMENT OF 

MASSACHUSETTS UNDER THE CONSTITUTION ON THE TWENTY- 

FIFTH DAY OF OCTOBER, 1780, TOGETHER WITH THE 

PROCEEDINGS AT THE STATE HOUSE AND AT 

THE CITY HALL ON THE SAME DAY. 




BOSTON: 
THE SOCIETY'S HOUSE, 18 SOMERSET STREET. 

M. DCCC. LXXX. 



PROCEEDINGS. 



At the regular monthly meetmg of the Society on the 
6th of October, the subject of commemorating the cen- 
tennial anniversary of the organization of the government 
of Massachusetts under the constitution was brought for 
ward by Mr. William W. Wheildon, and on motion of the 
Rev. Mr. Slafter was referred to the Board of Directors 
with full authority to take such measures as they should 
think expedient. 

At a special meeting of the Board of Directors, held on 
the 8th of October, on motion of the Hon. Thomas C. 
Amory, the following resolution was passed : — 

Whereas, The centennial commemoration of the organization of 
the government under the Constitution of Massachusetts has been re- 
ferred to this Board by the Society, 

Resolved, That, in our judgment, some observance of the 25th of 
the present month would be appropriate in memory of this important 
event, which took place on the twenty-fifth day of October, 1780. 

A committee, consisting of the Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, 
Mr. William W. Wheildon, and the Hon. Nathaniel F. 
Safford, was appointed to present this resolution to his 
Excellency John D. Long, Governor of Massachusetts, 
with such considerations as they may think proper in its 
behalf. 



6 

It was voted, on motion of Mr. John Ward Dean, that 
a special meeting of the Society be held on the twentj'^- 
fifth day of October, 1880, to commemorate the one hun- 
dredth anniversary of the organization of the government 
of Massachusetts under the constitution of 1780, and that 
Messrs. Wheildon, Amory, and Safford, be requested to 
read papers before the Society on that occasion. 

At a subsequent meeting of the Directors, Mr. Wheildon 
reported for the committee that the governor would issue 
a proclamation, institute a brief commemorative service, 
have flags displayed on the State House, and a salute of 
a hundred guns on the Common ; and that the Mayor of 
Boston would order the Old State House, in which the 
government was organized in 1780, to be properly deco- 
rated on the 25th inst. in memory of that event. 

The Society met, agreeably to the call of the Directors, 
on Monday, the 25th of October, at its House, 18 Somer- 
set Street, Boston, a century having on that day been 
completed since the organization of the government of 
Massachusetts under the constitution in 1780. 

The Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, Ph.D., the president of 
the Society, opened the proceedings in the following 
words : — 

Ladies and Gentlemen, — In the absence of a more 
elaborate and general celebration of the one hundredth 
anniversary of the establishment of our State Government, 
it has been thought advisable that this Society should take 
cognizance of it, that a record of it might appear in our 
proceedings, and tiius afford an example for its observance 
when another century shall have closed. 

Most heartily do we respond to the recommendations 
of his Excellency Governor Long, in the memorable 
words of his proclamation in regard to this day ; and most 
devoutly would I join in the thanksgivings to the God 
of nations which have just been offered at the capitol by 
our venerable patriarch. Dr. Hopkins, for the manifold 



mercies which he has bestowed on the American Republic, 
and especially for the signal favors conferred on this Com- 
monwealth. 

When I reflect on what Massachusetts has done for the 
cause of education, science, commerce, manufactures, civil 
and religious freedom, and every thing that pertains to 
the highest civilization of her people and the welfare of 
the human race, my heart rises in gratitude to my heav- 
enly Father, that he permitted me to be born close on her 
borders, under the shadow of her blessed institutions, — 
here for a long course of years to enjoy the rich blessings 
which have flowed from a wise and beneficent administra- 
tion of her government, and the principles on which it is 
founded, — and here at last, I trust, to rest in the bosom 
of a soil consecrated by the blood, piety, and patriotism 
of her sons, to the cause of liberty and the rights of 
man. 

The observance of this anniversary we owe not only to 
the present generation, but to those which are to follow 
us, in memory of the fathers who laid the foundation 
of our government, that their examples of wisdom and 
philanthropy may be perpetuated through all coming 
time. 



The president then read the following letter from the 
Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, LL.D., president of the Massa- 
chusetts Historical Society : — 

New York, 23d Oct., 1880. 

My dear Mr. Wildkr, — Few things would have given me more 
pleasure than to unite with the governor and council on Monday next, 
and afterwards with you and the New England Historic Genealogical 
Society, in commemorating the centennial anniversary of the organi- 
zation of our State Government. 

Next to John Adams no one had a greater part in framing tlie con- 
stitution of Massachusetts tlian James Bowdoin, under whose name, 
as president of the convention, it was submitted to the people for 
ratification. As the oldest of his living descendants, I should have 
felt proud to be present on sucli an occasion. But, as a delegate to 



8 

our Triennial Church Convention, I am bound to remain here until the 
27th inst. Accept my best thanks, and believe me, vfith gieat re- 
gards, Your obliged friend, 

Robert C. Winthrop. 
Hon. M. P. Wilder, President. 

Messrs. Wheildou, Amoiy, and Safford, having been 
announced by the president, read memorial papers on the 
subject suggested by the day. 



PAPER BY MR. WILLIAM W. WHEILDON. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the New Eng- 
land Historic Genealogical Society, — The adop- 
tion of a State constitution in this Commonwealth, and 
the inauguration of a free and independent government 
of the people in " the territory formerly called the Prov- 
ince of Massachusetts Bay," on the twenty-fifth day of 
October, 1780, was a very important event in its history, 
and was so regarded at the time. The act was accom- 
plished at the end of a hundred and fifty years from its 
settlement, and may very properly be regarded as an 
achievement in the great Puritan enterprise of settling 
New England, resulting in the establishment of an in- 
dependent civil government of the people, and the full 
enjoyment of religious freedom. 

purpose of the settlement. 

The settlement of Massachusetts, however we may 
regard it, and whether that at Plymouth be included or 
not, was a marvellous undertaking, and from the begin- 
ning has yielded and been productive of most important 
and interesting results. The purposes and objects of the 
settlement, which, naturally enough, may have been vari- 
ous with the parties, were of a very decided character, and 
iti is certain that the most prominent of these, in the minds 
of the actual settlers, was religious freedom, — the liberty 
and the right to worship God in their own way, and ac- 
cording to their understanding of the Scriptures. 

There were some, however, not in the Massachusetts 
settlement, who did not come over with any such purpose 
as that avowed by the Puritans, which may be illustrated 
by a relation of Cotton Mather. He says, " I have heard 
that one of our ministers, once preaching to a congregation 
at the eastward, urged them to approve themselves a re- 
ligious people from this consideration : That otherwise 



10 

they would contradict the main end of planting this wil- 
derness. Whereupon a well-known person then in the 
assembly cried out, ' Sir, you are mistaken. You think 
you are preaching to the people at the Bay ; our main end 
was to catch fish.' " It is very likely, as has been said, 
that the reports of tliose who did come to these shores for 
the purpose of catching fish had some influence in direct- 
ing and perhaps advancing the settlements, but they had 
no intention of making a settlement. But neither with 
the Pilgrims nor the Puritans did such considerations 
have any weight : the Pilgrims came as pilgrims, and the 
Puritans as puritans, and neither, it may certainly be said, 
with any secular or speculative purpose. 

NON-CONFORMISTS. 

In looking into the past for the primary cause of this 
movement on their part, it must be directly traced to the 
Reformation in England, when the non-conformists as- 
sumed a position and adopted an organization of their 
own outside the Church of England. Finding the Refor- 
mation laboring under a sort of "hopeless r'etardation," 
as expressed in the " Magnalia," they did, in 1602, enter 
into a covenant, " wherein expressing themselves desirous 
of attending worship with a freedom from human inven- 
tions and additions, . . • gave themselves up first unto 
God, and then to one another." Finding their brethren in 
the Church of England, as then established by law, took 
offence at these their endeavors after a scriptural reforma- 
tion, and being loath to live in the continual vexations 
which they felt arising from their non-conformity, they 
peaceably and willingly embraced a banishment into the 
Netherlands, where they settled at the city of Leydjen, 
about seven or eight years after the first combination. 
These were the Pilgrims, who afterwards, in 1620, left 
Holland, and landed at Plymouth, where, after many hard- 
ships of climate, weather, want of food, encountering the 
savages, accidents, and some wrongs and disagreements 
among themselves, they triumphed over all obstacles and 



11 

difficulties, and established "Congregational churches," 
according to their own faith and convictions, which they 
could not have done had they remained in England. 

PILGRIMS AND PURITANS. 

Thus, it will be seen, the removal of the Pilgrims to 
Holland was a direct consequence of the Reformation in 
England; and, becoming discontented there, "to avoid con- 
tinual vexations," and be allowed to worship God accord- 
ing to their own convictions, they voluntarily came to 
New England. They were not persecuted, not martyrs, 
not banished, but Pilgrims ; voluntary exiles from their 
native land, that they might enjoy their religious faith and 
worship God in their own way without the formalities of 
the Church. Not so the settlement of Massachusetts by 
the Puritans. In this case "it was persecution," as Cotton 
Mather says in the most emphatic manner; and yet, in 
laying this charge to the Church of England, which had 
simply displaced the Church of Rome, he says, " limiting 
that name unto a certain faction, . . . for, though their 
mother had been so harsh to them as to turn them out of 
doors, yet they highly honored her, believing that it was 
not so much their mother, but some of their angry breth- 
ren." Nevertheless, there can be no doubt it was the 
persecution of the Church of England, however it may 
have been influenced by members or authority, that com- 
pelled the Puritans, if they would enjoy the religion they 
professed and believed, to leavB the country, even for the 
wilderness which was open to them. To forward this 
purpose, it is said, with the peculiar fervor of the Puritan, 
" the God of heaven served, as it were, a summons upon 
the spirits of his people in the English nation, stirring up 
the spirits of thousands, which never saw the faces of 
each other, with a most unanimous inclination to leave all 
the pleasant accommodations of their native countr}^ and 
go over a terrible ocean into a more terrible desert, for 
the pure enjoj'ment of all his ordinances." 



12 



UNDER THE FIRST CHARTER. 

By the first charter obtained by the company it was a 
kind of corporation, and its members were allowed the 
privilege of electing their own governor, and invested 
with authority to govern and to punish offences. This 
charter was continued through the early years of the col- 
ony, from 1630 to 1684, more than half a century, when 
it was finally annulled, and all the rights supposed to 
have been gained and held under it were called in ques- 
tion. 

Sir Edmund Andros arrived in Boston in December, 
1686, with a commission from the king as governor of 
all the New England colonies, to which, two years later, 
New York was added. Not only by this act were the 
powers and privileges of the people of the colony reduced 
and lessened, but they were, in fact, when the work of 
government assumed a practical form, deprived of much of 
their interest, and all their influence in its administration. 

At this time, in fact, the colony was in its direst tribu- 
lations. The substantiality of their patent, by which they 
held the country, and even the papers, where they had 
obtained any, by which they held their house-lots and 
homesteads, were called in question. It seemed as if they 
were to be rendered almost penniless by taxation, over 
which they had no control, and homeless by claims which 
they could neither meet nor satisfy. They were absolute- 
ly preyed upon by the governor and his tools. " The 
brutish things done by these wild beasts of the earth," as 
Mather calls them, " are too many to be related." Among 
other things, Andros made a law prohibiting town meet- 
ings excepting once a year. The good thing the king did 
at this time, needed to help forward the great end which 
the colony seemed designed to effect, — civil and religious 
freedom, — was the " Declaration of Indulgence," by which 
there was to be universal toleration in matters of religion, 
which called forth a day of thanksgiving in Boston. 



13 



COLONIAL REVOLUTION. 

The result of this condition of things which prevailed 
was the first colonial revolution, which, as if monitory of 
the Revolution which occurred nearly a hundred years 
later, was mostl}^ enacted on the 19th of April, 1689, and 
resulted in the imprisonment of the royal governor and 
some of the leading men of his condemned administration. 
The people for a while managed their own government, 
observing, as far as might be, some of the forms j)rescribed 
in the original charter of the colony. 

THE SECOND CHARTER. 

The second charter of 1692, which followed, continued 
in force until the meetirg of the Provincial Congress, and 
was the last under which the colony was governed by the 
officers appointed by the king. It deprived the people of 
many important rights and privileges which they had pre- 
viously enjoyed, principally that of electing their own 
governor and council. This, together with the laws of 
Parliament and the attempt to tax the people exclusively 
for the benefit of the home government, brought about 
the second Revolution, which resulted in the independence 
of the country, the union of the colonies, and the estab- 
lishment of a government of the people, by the people and 
for the people. 

PROVINCIAL CONGRESS AND THE COUNCIL. 
The government of Massachusetts was partially assumed 
by the people on the organization of the Provincial Con- 
gress, in October, 1774, and still more effectually, with a 
General Court, expressly elected for the purpose, in July, 
1775, — the council, elected by the General Court, officiat- 
ing as the executive, in the absence of a governor and 
lieutenant-governor, as provided for in the charter of 
1692. This government, acting independently of king or 
Parliament, and chosen by the people, continued until the 
adoption of the State constitution, in 1780. The council 



14 

consisted of twent3-eight members, and fifteen signatures 
were necessary to make legal every act of the General 
Court. 

THE SECOND REYOLUTIOX, 

however, was of an entirely different nature and character 
from that which occurred something less than a hundred 
years before, when the colony was in its infancy. It was 
not simply dissatisfaction with the local government of 
the colony, but against the laws and measures of the king, 
the ministry, and the Parliament of England ; and before 
its termination the Continental Congress declared the in- 
dependence of the colonies, and the colony of Massachu- 
setts assumed its own government, adopted a constitution, 
and elected its own governor and general assembly. 

THE CONSTITUTION". 

The interest and importance of this anniversary and 
the occasion it commemorates can hardly be exceeded by 
any that have preceded. In the midst of a war between 
the colonies and the mother country, commenced a few 
years before for the avowed purpose of punishing the Bos- 
tonians, the people, having driven the enemy out of the 
country, both array and navy, determined to assume the 
rights and duties of their own government, • and establish 
a constitution for all time. It was a bold, spirited, and 
patriotic act of the people, and their first declaration^ was, 

"ALL MEN ARE BORN FREE AND EQUAL." 

They assert, after what they had experienced under an 
assumed despotic power and a government not of the peo- 
ple, that " the body-politic is formed by a voluntary asso- 
ciation of individuals, ... by which the whole people 
covenants with .each citizen, and each citizen wath the 
whole people, that all shall be governed by certain laws 
for the common good, and that the idea of a man born a 
magistrate, lawgiver, or judge, is absurd and unnatural." 
All men are endowed " with the right of enjoying and de- 
feading their lives and liberties, of acquiring, possessing, 



15 

and protecting property, and of seeking and obtaining 
their safety and hap[)iness." They went even further than 
this, declaring that no man or association of men shall 
have any "peculiar and exclusive j)rivileges distinct from 
those of the community." " The joeople of this Common- 
wealth have the sole and exclusive rioht of o-overnine; 
themselves as a free, sovereign, and independent State." 
"Government is instituted for the common good, for the 
protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people, 
and not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any 
man or class of men. Therefore the people alone have an 
incontestable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to insti- 
tute government, and to reform, alter, or totally change 
the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and 
happiness, require it." These were bold declarations. 

Such principles as these were new to the world until 
proclaimed in this country, more or less formally, in the 
acts and proceedings of the people, and finally by the 
Declaration of Independence, four years before the Massa- 
chusetts constitution. ' 

The clause in the bill of rights declaring the right ot 
the people "• to reform, alter, or totally change their gov- 
ernment when their protection, safety, prosperity, and 
happiness require it," met their own case, and described 
the condition of the people prior to the Revolution. For 
a hundred and fifty years the people of the colony had 
been the subjects of " His Majesty the King of England," 
"whoever or wliatever the King of England might happen 
to be ; and it may be said they had no rights of their own 
by nature, and were only permitted to enjoy such as " his 
Majesty " might be disposed to grant them. If not slaves 
in the full sense of that term, they were the servants of 
his will, living under his grant, and subsisting, as it were, 
by virtue of his indulgence. 

JOHN HANCOCK, GOVERNOR. 

The second Revolution, as we have seen, put an end to 
this state of things, and the last governor, who had sus- 



16 

tained himself for a while by his military power alone, had 
to leave the country, and was succeeded by the man whom 
he had attempted to disgrace. John Hancock, the first 
Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, escorted 
the last British governor of the colony from Long Wharf 
to the Old State House, in May, 1774, and was soon after, 
on the 1st of August, dismissed from his command, the 
governor no longer having occasion for his services. On 
the 11th of October following, this dismissed officer was 
elected President of the Provincial Congress, and in May, 
1775, a year after the arrival of Gen. Gage, he was pro- 
moted still higher, and was elected President of the Con- 
tinental Congress, at Philadelphia; and, finally, on the 
25th of October, 1780, six years after the arrival of Gen. 
Gage in Boston, he was elected Governor of the Common- 
wealth of Massachusetts by the people, under the new 
constitution of the State. Thus did the people revenge 
the treatment of this sterling patriot by Gen. Gage, and 
at the same time showed their appreciation of his patri- 
otic services in their behalf, by placing him at the head 
of a free and independent government of the State just a 
hundred years ago this day. 

This, Mr, President, is the day and the occasion which 
we have met here to commemorate : the foundation of 
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, through the tribu- 
lations of the first charter and the persecutions which fol- 
lowed persecutions under it, leading to its revocation; 
through the first colonial revolution, and the burdens of 
the second charter, up to the time of Gen. Gage, the Pro- 
vincial Congress then assuming the powers of government 
in the presence of a British governor and a British army ; 
then the temporary government, advised by the Continental 
Congress, until, finally, the adoption of a State constitu- 
tion in place of a British charter, and the establishment 
of an independent government. If there ever was a com- 
munity or State, as far as the principles of a free and inde- 
pendent government and the rights of the people to 
worship God according to their understanding of the 



17 

Scriptures are concerned, that may be said to be founded 
upon a rock, that State is Massachusetts. Massachusetts 
Bay was settled upon the basis of the Christian religion, 
with a strong and abiding faith in God, the Son of God, 
and the holiness of the Bible. This spirit was the mov- 
ing and the ruling power, and it may almost be said the 
actual settlers knew no other ; they certainly regarded no 
other as superior to it. Their religious belief was at all 
times paramount, whether in the Church or the State ; and, 
whatever criticisms are to be made upon them or their 
conduct, the errors they committed may be traced to their 
zeal in the cause which they professed, and which at all 
times controlled them. And surely it may be added that 
whatever interruj)tions, delays, or drawbacks, have occurred 
in history, here or elsewhere, must be considered as inci- 
dental to the undertaking, or, as Hutchinson expresses it, 
resulting from the fallibilities and infirmities of human, 
nature. 

CONCLUSION. 

The great purpose of the Puritans, for which they had 
left their homes and sacrificed every thing else, was ac- 
complished even beyond their expectations. The recog- 
nized law that a sect once persecuted is sure to become in 
its turn persecutors, came into full force, and the persecu- 
tion of different sects by the Puritans themselves was 
more severe and reckless than any thing which they had 
experienced, extending not merely to fines and corporal 
punishment, but to maiming of the body and the taking 
life. The result was the interference of the king, strange 
to say, in favor of religious freedom against the Puritans, 
and the final annulment of the charter of the colony. 
Thus, persecution brought about the settlement of the 
country, and secured for all time religious liberty and 
universal toleration. 

The temporary despotism which followed the revocation 
of the charter was overthrown by its subjects, and the 
revolution gave place to the second charter, which was 
distinguished by its restrictions and usurpations of the 



18 

civil rights of the people, so that persecution was now 
undertaken by the government against the rights of man, 
political freedom, and personal independence. The ex- 
cesses of the government and the attempt to tax and 
enslave the people, resulted, as in the former case, in a 
denial of the claim, a complete revolution, the establish- 
ment of an independent constitution, and a free govern- 
ment of the people. 

So that, it is true to say, religious persecution brought 
about religious freedom, and political persecution brought 
about civil freedom, until both were secured to the people 
of this CommouM^ealth by the constitution of 1780. 

Note. — Tn the brief discussion -which followed the introduction of 
the subject at the meeting of the Society, on the 6th of October, the 
inquiry was made whether Massachusetts was the earliest of the 
colonies in the adoption of a State constitution, after the Declaration 
of Independence, and while the war continued. In answer to the 
inquiry, it may be stated, that Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, 
and New Jersey, each adopted State constitutions in 1776, which 
were subsequently essentially remodelled ; and in all of them it was 
provided that the governor of the State should be chosen by the gen- 
eral assembly or legislature, and not by the people. In the Constitu- 
tion of Massachusetts, adopted four years later, it was provided that 
the governor and lieutenant-governor should be chosen by the popular 
vote; and this provision now prevails in most, if not all, the States 
of the Union. In the other States, comprising the original thirteen, 
the constitution of each was adopted as follows: New York, revised 
and amended, 1801; Pennsylvania, September, 1790; New Hampshire, 
1792; Vermont, 1793; Rhode Island, under its charter until 1818, gov- 
ernor elected by the people, constitution adopted, 1843; Connecticut, 
charter of 166"2, until constitution in 1818; Delaware, revised and 
amended, June, 1792; South Carolina, June, 1790; Georgia, revised 
1798; so that it is probably true to say that the fii-st complete free and 
independent State constitution, election of governor and other State 
officers by the people, was that of Massachusetts, in 1780, and even 
this has undergone revision and amendment. The early constitutions, 
wherever adopted, were sure to be imperfect and incomplete, from the 
very nature of things. A free government of a people and for a people, 
all having equal rights and privileges, was literally "something new 
under the sun," and, as we have .-een, required consideration, wisdom, 
and experience, to make it as complete and perfect as it is at the 
present day. 



19 



PAPER BY MR. THOMAS C. AMORY. 

The centennial commemoration of our national nativity 
the last six years has been principally occupied with the 
campaigns and engagements of the Revolution, which led 
to independence. The ancient proverb, which has attained 
also the dignity of a legal maxim, that inter arma silent 
leges^ applied Avith less force to our revolt against the 
mother country than to much of the more regular warfare 
waged between long-established nationalities. Its leaders, 
statesmen and lawyers, and accomplished officers who 
commanded in the field, well knew for what they were 
risking their lives in battle or on the scaffold. Success 
depended in a great measure upon conciliating the good 
opinion of the world at large, as well as upon what might 
be thought of them at home. They consequently took 
good care to compel respect, not only by the justice of 
their cause and their honesty of purpose, but by a scrupu- 
lous regard to law, in sj)irit and in form, in their military 
operations and their civil administration. The pulpit and 
the press instructed all the educated classes up to the 
importance of the crisis. The principles involved in the 
struggle were constantly discussed. Algernon Sydney's 
book on government, and similar works, Avere their favorite 
study. The literature of the war exhibits throughout a 
profound knowledge of what liberty signifies, and teems 
with the many ancient historical precedents to incite and 
justif}^ their efforts to escape from the intolerable political 
servitude to which they were subjected. 

Nor had the intelligent farmers and artisans who fought 
the battles of the war much to learn on the subject of 
government. From the memorable compact in the cabin 
of " The Mayflower ; " from the generous charter of 
Massachusetts Bay, unconsciously granted by the first 
Charles, to be wrested away by the second in 1684 ; 
under the provincial charter of 1692, which reduced the 



20 

colony to more complete subjection to the Crown, down to 
the arbitrary measures which at last aroused resistance, 
the inhabitants of our own as well as of the sister colonies 
had had frequent occasion to experience the full bitterness 
of oppression. Monarch and ministers, rejjresenting a few 
haughty oligarchs, not the great body of the English 
people, had violated without consideration their riglits as 
British subjects, disregarded their chartered privileges, 
interfered with their trade, foreign and domestic, and 
treated with contumely remonstrance and complaint. 
These grievances festered into implacable resentment 
what remained of loyalty ; and when the arbitrament of 
arms could no longer be avoided, the whole American 
people, with a few exceptions among the opulent, sprang 
up, like the seed of Cadmus, armed men, to fight for their 
liberties. 

The organization of the army besieging Boston under 
general officers appointed by the Continental Congress in 
June, 1775, committed the sister colonies to the defence of 
the common cause. At Watertown, behind the lines, the 
Provincial Congress, having no pretension to be regarded as 
a duly constituted body, competent to legislate, dissolved, 
and on the 19th of July the General Court re-organized 
under the provincial charter ; the powers of the Execu- 
tive, in the absence of a governor, vesting, as therein pro- 
vided, in the majority of the council. One consideration 
which prompted this course was to legalize the exercise of 
authority ; and, moreover, wisdom counselled not to lose 
any advantage that might be of value in case of reverse 
from that instrument, should it remain in its full vitality. 
They had not then thrown off their allegiance, or relin- 
quished the hope that b}^ their strength and bold vindica- 
tion of their rights they might obtain from the prudence 
of the British Government what its sense of justice and 
magnanimity denied. Many among the ablest of English 
statesmen were ready to admit that Parliament, in which 
they were not represented, had no right to tax the colo- 
nies. That coercion and illegal exercise of power justified 



21 

resistance was the cardinal principle of English liberty, 
from Magna Charta to the Bill of Rights. That conces- 
sions would be made, and their connection with their fel- 
low-countrymen across the sea be maintained, was for a 
time an expectation. But they were not long deceived, 
and no redress or immunity offered but in separation, that 
became their aim and object. 

The British, in March, 1776, were driven out of Boston, 
and in May, some weeks before the declaration of inde- 
pendence at Philadelphia, the General Court passed the 
Style Bill, as it was termed, which renounced, so far as 
Massachusetts was concerned, all allegiance to the Crown. 
It was drawn up by James Sullivan, then at the age of 
thirty-two judge of the Supreme Court. It recited in 
brief the grievances which had compelled the people to 
have recourse to arms, and ordered that after the first of 
June, all legal process, administrative acts and commis- 
sions, civil and military, should be no longer in the name 
of the king, but of the government and people of the 
Massachusetts Bay in New England. 

In a letter alluding to this bill, Sullivan writes as 
follows to John Adams: — 

"Taking it for granted such is the celerity of the American world 
to independence, and so obvious the decrees of Heaven for that grand 
event, that the sluggish motions of the irresolute and the weak and 
scandalous efforts of the tyrant are alike unable to prevent it, the 
important question is. What shall be done by this colony? Shall we 
urge you to an acceleration of the wheels of fate, and force you to 
translate us into an independent world immediately? Or shall we 
only assure you that we are ripe for the measure, and are in danger of 
being rotten before the proprietary governments are ripe ? There are 
many among us who dread the change, as good men do their natural 
dissolution, perfectly pleased with the idea of an hereafter, but stand 
trembling on the brink, and fear to launch away. But none are there 
who do not heartily engage to support the measure if Congress should 
pursue it. 

"We are daily altering our old, unmeaning form of government, as 
you may learn by the Style Bill, a history of which I sent Mr. Gerry; 
and I hope we shall attend to it when the defence of our coimtry caUs 
not our attention another way, until it is made a basis of liberty, and 



22 

not a path to vassalage and lawless domination. Some are writing to 
Congress for leave to assume a new form of government, but my mind 
is otherwise. I think it would be attended with the greatest anarchy, 
as it would leave the people for a time without any rulers; and to be 
free on the subject, I have many doubts whether the Congress has or 
ought to have power to regulate the national police of the different 
colonies, their business being, in my opinion, only to regulate the 
matters between government and government, for which particular 
assemblies are incompetent. I am, therefore, for attending to this 
matter ourselves, and for altering our constitution, piece by piece, in 
a manner the least alarming to our sister colonies, until we shall 
reduce it to true republican principles." 

That same month Congress recommended to the States 
that the exercise of every kind of authority under the 
Crown should be "suppressed. New Hampshire the pre- 
vious year had changed its colonial forms for republican, 
and the other States, except Rhode Island and South 
Carolina, proceeded to organize governments. Our Gen- 
eral Court, without delay, appointed a committee to con- 
sider the matter ; but the opinion prevailing that any such 
action should originate with the people themselves, they 
were recommended to send deputies the following year, 
empowered to adopt a form of government. In February, 
1777, before the General Court assembled, the committees 
of safety met at Worcester, and voted that an express 
convention of delegates ought to be called to frame a con- 
stitution. The deputies, however, when the court assem- 
bled, came with the proposed powers, and it was too late 
to recede. A draft was accordingly prepared by a com- 
mittee, and approved in December, 1777, by the court ; 
but wlien submitted on the following fourth of March to 
the people, it was rejected by a vote of one to six, one 
hundred and twenty of the towns making no returns. 
Its defects were manifold. It contained no bill of rights, 
enunciated no great principles. The powers and duties of 
the legislators and rulers were not defined, and it was in 
many other respects objectionable. The press strenuously 
opposed its adoption, and a pamphlet reporting the pro- 
ceedings of a convention at Ipswich to consider its insuffi- 



* 23 

ciency, called the " Ipswich Result," was thought also to 
have influenced its rejection. 

A year later the General Court, in February, 1779, not 
discouraged by the ill success which had attended their 
first effort, submitted to the people the question whether 
they would empower the next General Court, to assemble 
in May, to call a convention to form a constitution. The 
response being in the affirmative, a convention met at 
Cambridge on Wednesday, the first of September, over 
which James Bowdoin presided, and of which Samuel 
Barrett was secretary. Three hundred is the largest num- 
ber of members noted as present at any one time. They 
consisted of the ablest men of the State, of which Maine 
then formed a part. Rules and orders were prepared and 
adopted. The preparation of a declaration of rights and 
frame of government was voted to be intrusted to a com- 
mittee consisting of four members chosen at large, and 
twentj^-seven apportioned to the fourteen several counties, 
according to their representation in tlie General Court, 
to be nominated by their respective county delegations. 

The names of that committee, most of them illustrious 
in our annals for their wisdom, ability, and distinguished 
services, and equally memorable for their patriotism and 
self-sacrifice, their uprightness and general elevation of 
character, for they were as good as they were great, de- 
serve this day to be especially remejnbered with grateful 
veneration. 

Samuel Adams, John Pickering, Caleb Strong, and Wil- 
liam Gushing were chosen at large; James Bowdoin, John 
Adams, and John Lowell, for Suffolk ; Theophilus Parsons, 
Jonathan Jackson, and Samuel Phillips, for Essex; James 
Sullivan, Nathaniel Gorham, Eleazer Brooks, for Middle- 
sex ; Noah Goodman, Hezekiah Smith, John Billing, from 
Hampshire ; John Cotton and Gad Hitchcock for Plym- 
outh ; Enoch Hallet for Barnstable ; Robert Treat Paine 
and Samuel West for Bristol; Benjamin Chadbourne and 
David Sewall from York; Jeclediah Foster, Joseph Dorr, 
John Nichols, from Worcester; Samuel Small from Cum- 



24 • 

berland ; Benjamin Brainard from Lincoln ; James Harris 
and William Walker from Berkshire. 

There were many members possibly as distinguished not 
on the committee ; and the roll of the convention can 
hardly be read to-day by any of us without recalling num- 
berless careers too useful and honored to be forgotten. 

After a week spent in organizing the convention, it 
adjourned, on the 7th, for seven weeks, to Oct. 28th, to 
give time for the committee to perfect its work. The com- 
mittee met on Monday, Sept. 1-3, at the new court-house 
in Boston, and appointed James Bowdoin, John Adams, 
and Samuel Adams, as the sub-committee to draw up the 
plan of a constitution, and afterwards John Adams alone 
to prepare a bill of rights. Mr. John Adams, who had 
returned from Europe shortly before the meeting of the 
convention, and who sailed again on his return thither as 
minister to negotiate treaties of commerce, on the 17th of 
November, prepared according to tradition, the first draft 
of both instruments. 

" More than any other man, perhaps, in America, he had devoted 
himself to the study of the different theories of government. His 
early writings had done much to shape public opinion, and he was nat- 
urally regarded as the most safe and efficient leader in this important 
labor. While always loyal to liberty, and never hesitating in his faith 
in republican government as the best, — though that best must in some 
respects be imperfect, — his principal aim was to constitute a govern- 
ment of laws, not of men; and making the duly expressed popular 
will the rule of what should be deemed wise and expedient, various 
checks and restraints were introduced into his plan, to guard against 
the natural infirmities to which that will is subject in its periods of 
excitement. ' ' ^ 

His associates on the sub-committee helped to shape 
the report, and, when submitted to the general committee, 
it was for several weeks under discussion before it was 
reported on the 28th of October, 1779, to the convention. 
The convention sat at Cambridge till the 12th of Novem- 
ber, and then adjourned to meet in the Representatives' 
Chamber in Boston on the 5th of January. Heavy snows 

1 Life of James Sullivan, vol. i. p. 107. 



25 

impeded travel, and for a time but few were in attendance. 
When, towards the middle of the month, sixty were at 
last present, the work was taken up and diligently prose- 
cuted. No report of the debates has been preserved, and 
the skeleton minutes of the secretary shed little light. 
The draft reported to the convention in October was 
variously amended and extended, but in essentials was 
little changed. The most protracted discussion was on 
the third article of tlie declaration of rights for the sup- 
port of the churches. 

As their deliberations were approaching an end, a com- 
mittee of five, nominated by the House, of which Judge 
Sullivan was chairman, and Mr. Sara Adams, John Lowell, 
West, and Gray were members, was charged with the' draft 
of an address to the people to be printed with the con-- 
stitution, that it might be better understood. Mr. Wells, 
in his memoir, claims the authorship of this address for 
Mr. Adams; but Dr. Eliot, the general biographer of the 
cotemporary leaders, states that it was composed jointly, 
by Adams and Sullivan. The duty, according to custom, 
devolved upon the chairman to draw the report, but both. 
may have done their part. Such co-operation was not rare 
at that day when they measured their words. The princi- 
pal part in preparing the frame of government andi 
declaration of rights is also claimed for Mr. Sam Adams. 
This seems an injustice to his great memory. It needs no 
borrowed plumage. To no single Lycurgus or Solon is 
Massachusetts indebted for its excellent constitution. 
There were many at work. Lowell, whose amendment of 
the first article, that all men are born free and equal, has 
been claimed as abolishing hereditary bondage ; Sullivan, 
whom a writer in "• The Evening Post " in 1782 states to 
have had a considerable share in forming the constitu- 
tion ; Paine and Pickering, Gushing and Parsons, who, as 
Caleb Strong tells us in 1819, took an active part, were 
not all who helped in the work. 

The declaration of rights was happily no original com- 
position. It embodied the political teaching of ages. 



26 

Part as old as Runiiymede, part in the bill of rights of 
1689 settling the crown on William and Mary, part the 
suggestion of recent experience, it enlarged and improved 
upon the declaration of Virginia in May, 1776, and may 
be found piecemeal all through the disputes with Parlia- 
ment, in speeches, essays, and correspondence, for the 
twenty years before. 

The frame of government differs but little in form or 
in its main features from that rejected in 1778, some few 
portions of which were incorporated, word for word, in 
the report of the committee to the convention, and in the 
matured drafts submitted in May, 1780, to the popular 
vote. Both drew largely from the previous systems under 
the colonial and provincial charters, which were familiar. 
John Adams has been generally believed to have drawn 
up the first report to the general committee of both 
instruments, and the fifth chapter on the encouragement 
of art and literature and the general distribution of 
powers, is stated to have been his exclusive charge. 

On the second of March the convention, having com- 
pleted their work, voted to submit it to the people for 
their approval and ratification. The citizens of the several 
towns were invited to adopt it absolutely, or conditionally 
if amended, or to reject the whole or any part, — one or all 
of the thirty articles of the declaration of rights or sixty- 
nine of the frame of government, of which they severally 
consisted, one hundred in all being the original number 
If the majority in any town should disapprove of any 
clause, they were requested to express their objections. 
It was provided that if two-thirds of the votes cast 
throughout the Commonwealth should be in favor of all 
parts of the instrument, it was to be considered adopted. 
The several towns were also requested to empower their 
delegates to modify what should be disapproved, to con- 
form to the general sense of the people. Eighteen hun- 
dred copies of the proposed constitution were distributed 
to the selectmen, who were enjoined to submit it to the 
voters of tiieir towns, in May, ai)d make return of the 



27 

result before the last Wednesday of that month or 
the first Wednesday in June, to which time the conven- 
tion then adjourned. 

Upon examination of the returns in June from a 
hundred and seventy-four towns, it was found that objec- 
tion had been made to several clauses : to the third article 
of the declaration of rights, providing for support of the 
churches by general taxation ; to the sixteenth, j)roviding 
trial by jury in all civil suits, except for causes arising on 
the high seas, or mariners' wages; to art. 7, sect. 1, chap. 
2, of the frame of government that the Senate should 
choose its own president, appoint its own officers, and 
determine its own rules of proceedings; to art. 7, chap 6, 
to the honorary title of governor, lieutenant-governor, 
and council. The objections to the whole, or to any spe- 
cial clause, were not sufficiently numerous to affect the 
two-thirds vote required for adoption, and on the fifteenth 
of June, every article being read separately, and the ques- 
tion put if the people had accepted it, the vote in each 
case was largely in the affirmative. It was then moved 
and seconded that the people of the State of Massachu- 
setts Bay had accepted the constitution as it stands in the 
printed form submitted to their revision by the resolves of 
the second of March last, and this also passed by a large 
majority. 

On the following day it was resolved that the first Gen- 
eral Court should be held on the last Wednesday of 
October, and that town meetings should be called through- 
out the State on the first Monday in September, to choose 
a governor, lieutenant-governor, and persons for councillors 
and senators ; and in October, ten days at least before the 
last Wednesday, representatives to serve in the said Gen 
eral Court. James Bowdoin, president of the convention. 
Judge Greenleaf, General Davidson, Ebenezer Stoier, and 
Hon. Oliver Wendell, were appointed a committee to wait 
on the two Houses of Legislature with an attested copy of 
the resolves. Another committee was appointed to make 
application to the court for payment of the attendance 



28 

and travel of the members of the convention out of the 
public treasury ; and yet another, to request the court to 
provide for the usual entertainment on election day, for 
the said last Wednesday in October. The committee 
charged to present the resolves were ordered to request 
the branch of the Legislature, whose turn it was, to 
appoint, if they saw fit, a minister to preach the usual 
election sermon on that day. 

John Hancock was elected governor. There was no 
choice by the people of lieutenant-governor, and James 
Bowdoin and then James Warren were successively 
chosen by the General Court, but declined, and Thomas 
Gushing was elected. The Senate and House were filled 
with well-known personages already or later consijicuous 
in the public service. On the election day the Gadets 
escorted the governor to the State House,^ and when he 
had been qualified, thirteen guns were fired. After the 
sermon by Dr. Cooper in the old Brick Meeting House, 
from the text in xxx. Jeremiah, — "And their congrega- 
tion shall be established, and their nobles shall be of 
themselves, and their governor shall proceed out of the 
midst of them," — the Government and invited guests 
dined at Faneuil Hall, the number of toasts being likewise 
thirteen, in recognition of the sisterhood of States. 

Proclamation was soon after made by the governor from 
the Province House, then, as earlier, the headquarters of 
the Executive, that the judges and other officials, as pro- 
vided in the constitution, should exercise their functions 
till others should be appointed. The. judges of the Su- 
preme Court and Mr. Bowdoin and Mr. Pickering were 
appointed a commission to revise the laws in conformity 
with tlie principles of the new government, and submit 
them to the Legislature. Entails and primogeniture were 

1 The Cadets, it will be recollected, had disbanded themselves, when 
Gen. Gage withdrew the commission of John Hancock as commander ; 
but as their presence is mentioned in the newspapers of the day, it is 
probable that they volunteered their services on the occasion. The corps 
was afterwards revived and commissioned, under the administration of 
Gov. Bowdoin, in 17H5. 



• 29 

virtually repealed, or rendered ineffective. Every vestige 
of regal rule was taken from the statute book. Supposed 
necessary safeguards for the security of property, where 
not repugnant to the constitution, were respected. Thus 
the people of Massachusetts became " a free, sovereign, 
and independent State, with the sole and exclusive right 
of governing themselves ; to exercise and enjoy every 
power, jurisdiction, and right which is not or may not 
hereafter be by them expressly delegated to the United 
States of America, in Congress assembled." They so 
remained sovereign till the ratification of the federal con- 
stitution, and so continue, except so far as that instrument 
can be fairly construed to have divested them of any part 
of their independence. 

Certainly Sam Adams, who urged the importance of the 
amendments, that the good people may clearly see the 
distinction between the federal powers vested in Congress 
and the sovereign authority belonging to the several States, 
which is the palladium of the private and personal rights 
of the citizens ; Sullivan, whose work on the United States 
Government, in 1791, was written expressly to insure the 
amendment to the federal constitution, securing the judi- 
cial independence of the States; John Hancock and many 
more who took part in framing the State constitution, 
believed State sovereignty an important safeguard of 
liberty. 

In 1795 it was decided not to revise the constitution as 
provided in the instrument, but in 1820, a convention, 
over which John Adams was invited to preside, but de- 
clined, submitted to the people fourteen amendments, nine 
of which were adopted. The first provided that no bill 
submitted within five days of adjournment should become 
a law unless signed by the governor. The General Court, 
by the second, was authorized to make towns of twelve 
thousand inhabitants cities. The third determined who 
should be entitled to vote, and repealed the sixty pound 
qualification. The sixth and seventh abbreviated the oath 
of allegiance, and the ninth provided for amendments. 



30 

The tenth amendment, in 1831, changed the beginning 
of the political year to the first Wednesdaj^ in January. 
The eleventh, in 1833, annulled the third article of the 
declaration of rights as to the support of churches by 
general taxation. The thirteenth, in 1810, removed the 
property qualification for the Legislature. In 1853 a con- 
vention framed a new constitution, which was not ap- 
proved by the people, but some of the proposed changes 
were embodied in the subsequent amendments. The 
recent large immigration had created some solicitude lest 
those born in the country should be largely outnumbered, 
and this may account for some of the constitutional changes 
made or advocated at this period. 

The fourteenth amendment, in 1855, substituted the 
plurality rule for the majority previously required. The 
sixteenth provided that the councillors should be elected 
by the people; and the seventeenth, the secretary, 
treasurer, receiver-general, auditor, and attorney-general ; 
the nineteenth, sheriffs, registers of probate, commissioners 
of insolvency, clerks of court, and district-attorneys. 
The eighteenth, the same year, prohibited the application 
of public moneys to the support of sectarian schools. 

The twentieth amendment, in 1857, provided that no 
person should vote, or be eligible to office, who could not 
read the constitution in the English language, and write 
his name. The twenty-first and twenty-second, the same 
year, reduced the House to two hundred and forty mem- 
bers, and the Senate to forty. The twenty-third, in 1859, 
that no one should vote, or be eligible to office, who had 
not resided in the United States two years after his natu- 
ralization, was annulled by the twenty-sixth in 1863. The 
twenty-fourth, in 1860, provided that vacancies in the 
Senate should be filled by the people ; and the twenty- 
fifth, vacancies in the council by concurrent vote of Senate 
and House, if in session, if not, by the governor, with the 
advice and consent of the council. The twenty-seventh 
and last, in 1877, removed the disqualification, under art. 
2, chap. 6, of presidents, professors, and instructors of 
Harvard College, for seats in the Legislature. 



31 

These amendments are significant to whoever is familiar 
with our history during the last hundred years. They 
indicate the growing enlightenment in keeping religious 
controversy out of politics, and the jealousy of authority 
and drift towards democratic principles in filling the public 
ofiSces by popular vote instead of by the previous Executive 
appointments. They show, too, an increased confidence in 
universal suffrage, by the removal of property qualifications 
. for electors and elected. It is creditable to the wisdom of 
those who framed the constitution, that in a changeable 
woild so much of it remains, as originally reported and 
adopted, undisturbed. The character of a people shapes 
its institutions ; and those institutions have again a conser- 
vative and retro-active influence in maintaining its pristine 
standards, and holding fast the generations as they pass to 
such paths of moderation as wisdom and experience teach 
us are alike beyond the reach of despotic power and popu- 
lar lawlessness. 

If too bold to assume that the Constitution of Massachu- 
setts, as originally adopted, was absolutely perfect, or even 
superior to those of her sister States, it was wisely framed 
to effect its object. It was not the earliest, and she 
profited by the experience of those that had already 
finished their task. For then all circumstances favored the 
work. Exhausted by the war, the country felt the need 
of more efficient methods of bringing out what remained 
to it of strength. The Articles of Confederation had not 
yet been adopted in 1880 ; and Congress, without means or 
credit, and with divided counsels, was too feeble to cope 
with its heavy responsibility. The importance of well-or- 
ganized State governments to keep alive the struggle, on 
which the safety of each and all depended, was perceived, 
and fortunately there were not wanting clusters of trained 
statesmen over the land competent to form them. Actu- 
ated purely by a conscientious sense of obligation to 
carry out the wishes of their constituents, no selfish ambi- 
tion, no craving for personal rank or distinction, such as 
had prevailed with liardly an exception in every other 



32 

civilized land, swerved them from fidelity to the equal rights 
for all, for which they were still contending. Discarding 
every vestige of hereditary privilege, and carefully avoid- 
ing the speculative fallacies of Fi'cnch philosophers then 
chafing against the fetters of feudal vassalage, they 
founded republics upon that perfect law of liberty which 
opened to all the pursuits of happiness according to desert, 
opportunity, and the behests of Providence, without dis- 
turbing vested right or established order. 

Never before had governments, so free and equal, with 
representations so general, under written constitutions as 
carefully guarded, been subjected by an intelligent people 
to the test of experiment. Sorely tried by dangers fore- 
seen by their framers, by many no forecast could have 
anticipated, they have stood the strain ; and, if faith in 
their ultimate stability has ever wavered, time has strength- 
ened, not impaired. The States, each in its own sphere 
independent, circle round a central power of their own 
creation, clothed with a portion of their own vitality, re- 
ciprocally receiving and diffusing health and vigor. Held 
in their respective orbits by forces too beneficent to be 
simply human, they constitute a system, which, we may 
well hope, like the universe itself, will prove enduring ; 
and, if the children are as sensible as the fathers that 
framed it, will bear witness through time of the possibility 
of free institutions, and serve as a model to nations as 
they l)ecome sufficiently enlightened to value, and wise to 
adopt it. 



33 



PAPER BY THE HON. NATHANIEL F. SAFFORD. 

After listening to the papers which have just been 
read, in which have been traced, with careful and elabo- 
rate research, the gradual development of the principles 
which underlie the constitution, the rudiments of its 
structure, its process of formation, and the extent and 
limitations of its powers, I may, perhaps, on a public an- 
niversar}^ like this, be indulged in a somewhat wider range 
of remark than is befitting the themes usually presented 
to the attention of this Society. ' I refer to the external 
relations of the constitution, if, indeed, the powers of 
sovereignty expressly delegated under this constitution 
do not form a part of the constitution from which they 
emanate. I mean the relation which subsisted to the 
provincial laws, to the old confederation, the co-ordinate 
sovereignty of the States, to the federal union, and to the 
subrogation of certain attributes of the one, combining to 
enthrone the nationality of the other. They were rec- 
ognized at the time of its adoption in the relation then 
subsisting; in the clause excepting from jurisdiction such 
right and power as had already been, or should thereafter 
be, delegated to the United States, in the provisions for 
the election of delegates in Congress, and in the form of 
the Oath of Allegiance. 

Although the cession of powers of limited sovereignty 
by the State has not impaired its entirety as a framework 
of constitutional representative government, it has mate- 
rially circumscribed the limits of its powers in their prac- 
tical operation. These have also been modified by the 
numerous amendments to the federal constitution ratified 
by the States, and by the decisions of the federal courts. 
No separate State-right system, exercising the full powers 
of treaty and national supremacy as reposed in the federal 
government, is known to our annals. Such system has 
always been affected, whether under colonial or provincial 



O ,1 

or more recent rule, by its relations to the Crown, the con- 
federation or the union of the States. 

So intimate were the governmental relations of the 
colonies in their resistance to the Crown, and their rela- 
tions as States to the confederation and the Constitution of 
the United States, that any historical comments upon the 
derivation of the rights, the origin of the sovereignty or the 
limitations of the powers of the one, are soon deflected by 
the co-existence and perturbations of the other. 

There is probably no instance in human history where 
discussions of civil, political, or chartered rights, of consti- 
tutional and representative government, kept pace, side b}' 
side, with incessant military campaigns and the alterna- 
tions of victory and defeat, as during the seven years of 
the revolutionary struggle. 

Wherever you open the volume, the mind is impressed 
with a consciousness of the magnitude of its momentous 
issues, whether the eye rests upon the right or the left, 
upon its civil or upon its militarj'- page. 

On the military page are recorded those causes which 
organized resistance ; the Stamp Act, the Revenue Bill, the 
Boston Port Bill, the writs of assistance, the contests with 
the Crown, the attempts to abrogate the charter, the stern 
expressions of public sentiment, — "strong halters, firm 
blocks, and sharp axes to those who deserve either," — the 
scenes of the Boston Massacre, the manifestoes of the 
Suffolk Resolves, of the provincial and continental Con- 
gress, the Declaration of Independence, the events at Lex- 
ington, Bennington, and Saratoga. 

These, and such as these which either induced, or- 
ganized, or resulted in resistance, may be fitly grouped 
together on the military page under the two first words 
of the motto upon the seal of the Commonwealth, — 
" Ense petit.'' 

The civil page transmits the record of events conse- 
quent upon the exigencies of their governmental condi- 
tions, the formation of a frame of civil government, the 
adoption by the j)eople of the constitution of the State, 



35 

the events fitly typified in the concluding clause of the 
motto, " Placidam sub lihertate quietam.'''' 

It is worthy of note that when, in years after, the Na- 
tional Congress adopted a device for the great seal of the 
Union, they selected a design almost identical in expression 
with the sentiment which is conveyed in the motto of the 
State, — the eagle holding in his right talon the olive 
branch of peace ; with its left clasping thirteen arrows, 
out of diversity evoking^ unity; a symbol of a new order 
of ages, when the arrows of war should be clasped by the 
girdle of peace, like that spirit of wisdom personified in 
the scripture of old, — " being but one she can all things 
do, and remaining in herself she maketh all things new." 

In order to comply with the recommendation of Congress 
to establish a constitution, slight changes only were requi- 
site in the legislative and judicial departments. The 
colonial system had introduced forms of administration 
not dissimilar from those which had existed in Great 
Britain, with "authority vested in two houses, one or both 
elected by the people. But the constitutions adopted by 
these States were the first written constitutions known to 
history. Their framers sought some just philosophical 
basis, such as should insure an equal and general repre- 
sentation, but not an unrestricted right of suffrage. In 
the Rhode Island and Connecticut plantations, the people 
were empowered by their charters to elect all their officers. 
In Massachusetts and the other colonies, the House of 
Representatives was chosen by the people ; but the gov- 
ernor and the body of councillors were appointed by the 
King or bv proprietors. 

For the structure of a State constitution they had no 
distinctive model. Charters, ordinances, patents, and 
statutes, had been so often disrespected by both King and 
Parliament, that precedents had lost the force of example. 
Precedents disappeared like footprints in shifting sands. 
Laws and institutions were shaped by the logic of events. 
They mouldered not out from uncertain or unmeaning 
traditions. They were canonized in the lives, the sacri- 



36 

fice, the language, the prayers, and predictions of the men 
who had been the authors and actors in their utterance. 

They ingrafted, it is true, some of the best muniments 
of English liberty, such as the principles of Magna 
Charta, the writ of habeas corpus, and the right of trial 
by jury. But these were in no sense the framework of 
the constitution ; they were but its scaffolding, — mere 
incidents, — remedies already embodied in the common 
law, long since interposed for the protection of the sub- 
ject against the oppressive acts or exactions of a pre-ex- 
isting tyranny. The concessions required by the barons 
for their protection from the arbitrary rule of King John 
by Magna Charta, six or seven hundred years before the 
formation of this constitution, the writ of habeas corpus 
to relieve the subject from arbitrary and unlawful im- 
prisonment, however important and salutary in the ex- 
igencies which gave them birth, in no sense justify the 
encomiums which have been so often pronounced upon 
their merits. These provisions, for aught of them that 
these written constitutions contain, are neither the foun- 
dation, the corner-stone, or the framework of a govern- 
ment established on a basis of popular sovereignty, o/, hy^ 
and for the people ; they are but ordinary or special 
remedies under the common inheritance of the common 
law ; and whether or not they are elsewhere the muni- 
ments of English liberty, their forms might all co-exist 
under the vilest system of oppression on which the sun 
ever shone. 

No. As Rousseau said, it was the " inalienable right " 
that was the key-note to the anthem of universal freedom. 

Rightly to estimate the magnitude of this revulsion 
from all pre-existing allegiance, we must recognize it in 
its assertion of dignity more ennobling, a world-wide 
influence far more expansive than a mere relief from 
coloniid dependence or subjection. For when, after this 
constitution had been written, the treaty of peace was 
signed, it became something more than a convention be- 
, tween a kingdom and a colony, — it was henceforth a 



37 

treaty of concession of prerogative, monarchy, and privi- 
lege to the highest behests of human liberty. That 
revulsion was attended with the throwing off of the 
entire structure and scaffolding of monarchy, the opening 
a way for the induction of popular sovereignty, and the 
subversion of a fatal policy which had fastened into every 
fold to repress the growth of the colonies. 

In the earlier days of colonization, commerce sought its 
protection and profit in exclusive monopolies. 

Hence came' royal charters, patents, powers, and grants 
of local government. Afterward, as their counterpart, 
•came severe and unjust restrictions upon manufactures 
and commerce, revocation of charters by the Crown, and 
unwarrantable exactions by the Parliament. This system 
of combined monopoly, prerogative, and privilege per- 
meated all their relations to the colonial and provincial 
governments, until, for the simultaneous upheaval and 
subversion of the entire fabric, the hour had struck. 

These royal charters, granted, revoked, re-issued, with 
lines of boundary indefinite and deceptive, occasioned 
ceaseless and even hostile antagonisms among the colonies. 
Soon the wars between P'rance and England were trans- 
ferred to the soil of America. There remained no other 
alternative than to espouse the cause of Great Britain. 
That cause espoused, was upheld by the colonies with a 
kind of religious enthusiasm, for with her were the alBlia- 
tions of language, law, sect, and race. The year 1763 
witnessed the stibversion of French power in America. 

Why, now, had they fought the battles for dismember- 
ment from France, to be crushed anew by the ascendant 
power of England ? 

It has been said that the eleven years intervening be- 
tween the first Colonial Congress convoked at Albany in 
1765, and the Declaration of '76, witnessed more learned 
and profound debates on the subject of human rights, 
more thorough investigations of the rights of the citizen 
and the principles of civil government, than up to that 
time had ever occurred in the history of the human 
race. 



88 

The march of armies, the victories in naval warfare, 
those eventful scenes of suffering and sacrifice, would have 
been of less avail had they failed to secure at last a civil 
government under a free constitution ; one that should 
repose in rulers sufficient power to restrain and leave to 
the citizen all reserved rights. 

Notwithstanding the extreme reluctance of several of 
the colonies to consent to the articles of the old confed- 
eration, yet, when Virginia asserted in her constitution the 
sublime truth of the self-evident rights of man, that 
noble manifesto under slight variations in form of ex- 
pression was repeated with a single exception in every 
constitution that was formed after the Declaration of 
Independence. Georgia recognized "the laws of nature 
and reason." Upon this theme South Carolina remained 
silent. 

Among those renowned historic names of the gifted 
sons of Massachusetts, the framers of her constitution, 
the pride and glory of this centennial day, are written 
those of John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, and 
Robert Treat Paine. 

What other than these in the annals of constitutional 
liberty should greet the coming millions as they advance 
to enjoy the priceless blessings, and transmit and perpetu- 
ate the institutions, of a free and sovereign State? 

For these were they, already written on the scroll which 
contains the Declaration of Independence by these United 
Colonies, which affirmed the truths that impelled them 
to dissolve the political bands which had heretofore con- 
nected them with the British Crown, to enable them to 
assume among the powers of the earth" a separate and 
equal station ; and who, " appealing to the supreme Judge 
of the world for the rectitude of their intentions, had 
mutually pledged to that Declaration and to each other, 
their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor." 

How apposite that the name of John Hancock, the 
President of Congress on the day of the adoption of the 
Declaration of Independence, and the only name which 



39 

nad yet been signed on the day of its adoption, when it 
went forth into all the world, and the old bell of Inde- 
pendence Hall rung out its thrilling tones unto all the 
inhabitants of the land, and the old cradle of liberty was 
rocking with its natal chants, how apposite, how fortu- 
nate, yea, foreordained to an imperishable future, that 
the same great name on that morning risen to a fame of 
centennial glories, the name of one, whose hospitable 
home had bid its repeated welcome to the patriot sires, 
whose eye kindled and whose heart beat in unison with 
every advancing wave of constitutional liberty, whose 
hand never trembled, whose tongue never faltered, and 
whose courage never quailed ; how appropriate, that he 
should be thus associated in the annals of his native State, 
and installed as the first governor of this honored Com- 
monwealth. 

Of that Congress, wrote Abbe Raynal in 1781, " With 
what grandeur, with what enthusiasm, should I not speak 
of those generous men who erected that grand edifice by 
their patience, their wisdom, and their courage ! " 

Said he, " Hancock, Franklin, the two Adamses, were 
the greatest actors in that affecting scene, but they were 
not the only ones : posterity shall know them all. Under 
the bust of one of them has been written, ' He wrested 
thunder from heaven, and the sceptre from tyrants.' Of 
the last words of this eulogy shall all of them partake." 
Of that Union, said Patrick Henry, " British oppression 
has effaced the boundaries of the colonies." 

In after years, exclaimed Mirabeau, on the Tribune of 
the National Assembly of France, " I ask if the powers 
who have formed alliances with the States have dared to 
read that manifesto, and to interrogate their consciences 
after the perusal ? " 

" I ask whether there be at this day one government in 
Europe, the Helvetic and Batavian confederations and the 
British isles excepted, which, judged after the principles of 
the Declaration of Congress on 4th July, 1776, is not 
divested of its rights? " 



40 

Alluding to the same great scene, " Verily," said Napo- 
leon, "the finger of God was there." 

All constitutions representing popular sovereignty have 
in their nature been protests against pre-existing forms, 
and generally the dictate of State necessity. The com- 
pact of the forty-one signers on board " The Mayflower " 
in the harbor of Cape Cod was formed because they were 
located without the bounds of their patent. Thus also 
this constitution originated in the necessities of the condi- 
tion of the colonists. 

In the first confederation of the colonies of New Eng- 
land, each colony exercised exclusive jurisdiction within 
its own territor}^ ; but no two colonies were to join in 
jurisdiction without the consent of all ; and it required 
unanimous consent to admit any other colony into the 
confederacy. 

As early as 1754 a congress was held by commissioners 
from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Con- 
necticut, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, upon the subject of 
defence in the war pending with France. 

Many of the principles subsequently embodied in the 
Constitution of Massachusetts there found expression. 
They rejected all proposals for a division of the colonies 
into separate confederacies, resolved upon a union of the 
colonies, and proposed a plan of federal government with 
delegates to be chosen by the provincial assemblies, and a 
president-general to be appointed by the Crown. That 
confederacy was to embrace all the then existing colonies 
from New Hampshire to Georgia. But no such continen- 
tal union was ever formed. No provincial assembly coun- 
tenanced or sanctioned so dangerous an innovation. Ven- 
turesome as the scheme was, it was too much in advance of 
the times to warrant its adoption. Dr. Franklin subse- 
quently declared such union of the colonies impossible 
unless compelled by the agency of tyrannical force. 

The Bill of Rights prefixed to the articles of the Con- 
stitution of Massachusetts was not without precedent in 
the civil history of the colony. The British Parliament in 



41 

its Bill of Rights had only enunciated the concessions to 
liberty, which, in 'the lapse of centuries, had been acquired 
from their kings. The omission of any Bill of Rights in 
the draft of the constitution submitted to the people in 
1778 sufficiently justifies and explains its entire and deci- 
sive rejection by the overwhelming vote of the people of 
Massachusetts. In a congress of delegates from nine col- 
onies assembled at the instance of Massachusetts, fifteen 
years prior to the adoption of her constitution, a bill of 
rights had been devised and concerted, wherein the sole 
power of taxation was declared to be reposed in their own 
colonial legislatures. That self-assertion of the absolute 
authority of colonial legislation, in defiance of the su- 
premacy of Parliament, illumined the pathway to the Con- 
tinental Congress of '74 in its assertion of the inalienable 
rights of British freemen. In the spirit of those resolves 
the Union was formed. 

It was a foregone conclusion that, in like manneras the 
communion of the colonies had been one of the necessities 
of war, so also, in the wreck of the confederation, unless 
the boundaries of these separate States were to be marked 
like the chain of Roman fortresses and castles along the 
Rhine, a union under some federal government would be 
one of the emergencies of peace. 

There can be no holier hour of civil commemoration in 
the cycle of the centuries than that which witnessed the 
hand of John Hancock, the first signer of the Declaration 
of Independence of the United States of America, uplifted 
as her first governor in the oath to bear true faith and 
allegiance to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The 
friends of human rights and constitutional liberty in all 
coming time will not withhold from the State of Virginia 
their meed of gratitude for the wisdom and patriotism 
which so inseparably and so early conjoined the muni- 
ments of free institutions in her Bill of Rights ; and while 
we recall with saddening recollections the more recent 
scenes of civil strife, when the armies of Virginia were 
arrayed upon her own soil in bloody conflict against the 



42 

re-establishment of that Union which she had done so ranch 
to form, and the re-assertion of that Bill of Rights which she 
had given to the world ; — yet when beyond these passing 
clouds there shall break the light of a serener vision, and 
time shall tinge with more benignant hues the widening 
vistas of an unsevered past, — in the memories of Appo- 
mattox we may forgive, — the name of the gallant leader of 
Virginia's hosts we may perchance forget, — and though 
no arch of triumph shall ever rise, no molten column trans- 
mit the record of battles fought or victories won, the torch 
of constitutional liberty just lighted for the guidance of 
the nations on the shore of a century shall pass undimmed 
from hand to hand, in a union unbroken from State to 
State, — and when the last days of this centennial era shall 
all be numbered, the drums that beat at Bunker Hill will 
beat again at Yorktown. 

One of the most emphatic predictions prophetic of the 
establishment of a regular American Constitution occurred 
twelve years before the adoption of the Constitution of 
Massachusetts, and seven years before the scenes at Lex- 
ington. 

" Courage, Americans ! " cried Livingston, one of the 
famed New York triumvirate of Presbyterian lawj^ers, 
" Courage, Americans ! liberty, religion, and the sciences 
are upon the wing to these shores. The finger of God 
points out a mighty empire to your sons. The savages of 
the wilderness were never expelled to make room for idola- 
ters and slaves. The land we possess is the gift of Heaven 
to our fathers, and Divine Providence seems to have decreed 
it to our latest posterity. So legible is this munificent and 
celestial deed in past events, that we need not be discour- 
aged by the bickerings between us and our parent country. 
The angry cloud will soon be dispersed, and America ad- 
vance to felicity and glory with redoubled activity and 
vigor. The day dawns in which the foundation of this 
mighty empire is to be laid, by the establishment of a regu- 
lar Aynerican Constitution. 

"All that has hitherto been done seems to be little beside 
the collection of materials for this orlorious fabric. 



43 

" 'Tis time to put them together. The transfer of the 
European part of the family is so vast, and our growth so 
swift, tliat, before seven years roll over our heads, the first 
stone must be laid." 

When, from the time of that prediction, those seven 
years were ended, there broke upon the ear the volley at 
Lexington. 

It is around shrines like these that the sons of Massa- 
chusetts, in the oft-recurring anniversaries of our eventful 
annals, will love to linger : — 

" Shrines to no creed or code confined, 
The Delphian vales, the Palestines, 
The Meccas of the mind." 



After the reading of the papers, on motion of the Hon. 
G. Washington Warren, the thanks of the Society were 
presented to Messrs. Wheildon, Amory, and Saftord, for 
their able, learned, and instructive papers, and it was 
voted that copies of the papers be requested, and that 
their publication be referred, as usual, to the Board of 
Directors. 

Colonel William M. Olin, the private secretary of his 
Excellency Governor Long who had expected to be pres- 
ent, was here announced, who presented a note to Presi- 
dent Wilder, which he read as follows : — 

" The Governor sends his greetings to this Society by his private 
secretary, and regrets that a lengthened executive session prevents his 
being at the Society's meeting to-day. He hoped to be able to come, 
but has found it impossible." 

Mr. David Pulsifer asked leave, which was granted, and 
read extracts from the Massachusetts Records, giving the 
names of the old Council, present Oct. 11, 1780, a form 
of summons to the new senators, with the proceedings 
Oct. 23, 24, and 25, and the record of the announcement, 



44 

that John Hancock, Esq., was elected Governor of Massa- 
chusetts, the ceremonies of administering to him the oath 
of office, and the official announcement of his appointment 
by the Secretary of State, and likewise by the Sheriff of 
the County of Suffolk, who proclaimed his election from 
the balcony of the Old State House. The extracts are as 
follows : — 



FROM THE COUNCIL RECORDS. 



Wednesdav, October 11th, 1780. 
Present in Council. 

Hon. Jeremiah Powell honl Timo Danielson honi John Pitts 

Thomas Gushing Nathan Gushing Aaron Wood 

Samuel Holten Josiah Stone Joseph Dorr 

Benja White Abraham Fuller Will>ii Whiting 
Benja Austin Samuel Niles 



FOPtM OF SUMMONS TO SENATORS CHOSEN ACGORD- 
ING TO THE NEW GONSTITUTION. 

To 



You being chosen a Senator for this Commonwealth, are 
hereby in the name of the Government & People of the 
Massachusetts Bay in New England, summoned to attend and 
assist at a General Court to be begun and holden at the State 
House in Boston on Wednesday the twenty-fifth of the present 
October, at nine of the clock a.m. under the New Constitution 
of Government for the said Commonwealth ; fail not of attend- 
ance, that there may be a due convention of Senators on the 
said day. 

Given pursuant to the said New Constitution of Government 
at the Council Chamber in Boston the eleventh of October 
A° D' 1780, and in the fifth year of the Independence of the 
United States. 

. President of Council. 



45 



Monday, October 23(1, 1780. 

Ordered that Capt. Moses MTarland be and hereby is di- 
rected to cause thirteen guns at the fort on fort hill to be fired 
on Wednesday- the 25th instant being election day. 

By the major part of the Council of the State of Massachusetts Bay. 

31 Proclamatton for dissolving the Great and General Court or 
Assembly. 

Whe7-eas the Great and General Court or Assembly of the 
State of Massachusetts Ba}' stands prorogued to Tuesday the 
twenty-fourth da}' of October instant, One thousand seven hun- 
dred and eighty, at 10 o'Clock in the forenoon, but as there will 
be a meeting of the General Court on Wednesda}- the 25th in- 
stant under the new form of Government ; 

Therefore We have thought fit to dissolve the Great and 
General Court or Assernbl}-, and the same is accordingly dis- 
solved ; whereof all the members of the said Court, and all 
others concerned are requested to take notice, and govern them- 
selves accordingly. 

Given at the Council Chamber in Boston this twenty-third 
day of October A° D' 1780 ; and in the fifth year of the Inde- 
pendence of the United of America. 

Tuesday, October 24th, 1804. [1780]. 

Ordered that Captain John Ingersol commander of the fort 
at Fort hill, be and hereby is directed to fire thirteen guns at 
said fort on the morrow being election day, the order to Captain 
M^Farland to the contrary notwithstanding, the same being 
reconsidered by this Board. 

Ordered that Colonel William Burbeck be and hereby is 
directed to deliver Captain John Ingersol fourteen twenty-four 
pound cartridges and three twelve pound cartridges with wads 
port fire and matchrope. 

"Wednesday, October 25th, 1780. 

The President and five of the Council under the Old Constitu- 
tion went down to the Hoase of Representatives to administer 
the several oaths to the members of the General Court, as 
prescribed by the new form of Government. 



46 



FROM THE SENATE RECORDS. 



At a General Court of Massachusetts began Sf held at Boston upon 
Wednesday the Twenty-fifth day of October^ One Thousand Seven hun- 
dred Sf Eighty being the first setting of the General Court of the COM- 
MONWEALTH of MASSACHUSETTS. 



Present in Senate 

Hon'''* Walter Spooner 
Thos Gushing 
Sami Holten 
Jabez Fisher 
Josiah Stone 
Abraham Fuller 
Sam' Niles 
Azor Orne 
Sam' Osgood 



■Wednesday, October 25, 1780. 

HonWe Sami Baker 
John Pitts 
Thos Durfee 
Joseph Dorr 
Stephen Clioate 
Nathi Gorham 
Ephraira Stark weatlier 
Seth Washburne 
Increase Sumner 
Solomon Freeman 



Hon'''^ Walter Spooner, Tho' Cashing, Sam' Holten, Jabez 
Fisher, Josiah Stone, Abr'' Fuller, Sam' Niles, Samuel Baker, 
John Pitts, Tho' Durfee, Joseph Dorr, Stephen Choate, Nath' 
Gorham, Eph'" Starkweather, Seth Washburne, Increase Sum- 
ner, Sam' Osgood, Azor Orne, &, SoP Freeman, Esquires, this 
day took the several Oaths prescribed by the New Consti- 
tution to qualify them as Senators, the same being administered 
to them by the President and five of the old Council, agreable 
to said Constitution and took their Seats Accordingly. 

Ordered, That Samuel Niles and Increase Sumner Esq" be 
a Committee with such as the Hon*"'^ House shall join to con- 
sider on what manner the Choice of the Hon'^'^ John Hancock 
Esq' in case of his Acceptance of the Trust, shall be pub- 
lished & declared. 

Sent down for Concurrence. Came up concurred, and Gen' 
Titcomb CoP Glover and M"" Barrett are joined. 



47 



Commonwealth of Massachusetts 

In Conformity to the Constitution of the Commonwealth of 
Massachusetts, The Senate and House of Representatives hav- 
ing Examin'd the returns from the several Towns within said 
Commonwealth respecting the Choice of a Governor and hav- 
ing found that the Hon''''' John Hancock Esq'' had a Majority 
of Votes for Governor we do now publickly declare His Ex- 
cellency John Hancock Esq'' to be Governok of this Com- 
monwealth and all Officers Civil and Military are to take 
notice thereof and Govern themselves accordingly. 

God save the Commonwealth of' Massichasetts. 



Commonwealth of Massachusetts 

In Senate. 

Ordered, That the foregoing Declaration be publickly an- 
nounced from the.Balcon}' of the State House bj- the Secretary 
and repeated b}' the Sheriff of the Count}- of Suffolk. 

Nath' Gorham Esq'' went down with a Message to the 
Hon*"^ House to Inform them that the Hon''''' John Hancock 
Esq"" was in the Council Chamber, having Accepted of the 
Office of Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 
and was ready to take the Oaths prescribed by the Constitution, 
and to desire the Attendance of the House in the Council 
Chamber to hear him take said Oaths required and to see him 
Subscribe the same. 

The Hon'"'' House attended Accordingl}' and the Oaths were 
Administered by the Hon''''' Thomas Cushing Esq'' President 
of the Senate, after which the Secretarj- made the Declaration 
of the Appointment of the Hon**'" John Hancock, Esquire, as 
Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, agreeable 
to the Order of both Houses repeated bj- the Sheriff of the 
County of Suffolk from the Balcony of the State House. 

John Lowell Esq'' came up with a Message from the Hon'''' 
House to acquaint the Hon'''" Council and Senate and His Ex- 
cellency John Hancock Esq'' that they were readj' to attend 
Divine Service and they attended Accordingly-. 



Commontocaltfi of fHassacfjusctts. 




BY HIS EXCELLENCY JOHN D. LONG, 

Governor of the Commonwealth. 



A PROCLAMATION. 

Wherkas, upon the adoption of the Constitution of the Common- 
wealth of JNIassaehusetts, the first General Court assembled on the 
twenty-fifth day of October, A. D 1780, and the government was 
organized : 

Now, therefore, in honor thereof, T call attention to the anniversary 
which is near at hand. It will mark the end of a hundred years of 
free popular government. During that period there has been a vast 
expansion of the Commonwealth in population, education, wealth, and 
material activity, but its Constitution remains substantially the same, 
— a monument to the foresight and wisdom of the men who made and 
adopted it. It has been a period lustrous with the names of great and 
good men and women, who, in church and state and school, in war 
and peace, in letters, art, and science, and in every departmi^nt of use- 
fulness and humanity, have added to the renown of Massachusetts and 
to the welfare antl inspiration of her people. It has been a hundred 
years of law and ordei', of enlarging freedom, of riches accumulating 
in the hands of labor, of increasing education, and of a Christian 
charity at home and abroad that has reached out its help to the whole 
world, whether it welcomed the stranger witliin its gates or sent its 
missionaries to the utmost parts of the earth. While it has handed 
down its perils, and suggests the continued need of eternal vigilance 
of every moral and religious safeguard, and of an unflinching fight 
against tlie sources of temptation, vice, and crime, it has yet vindi- 
cated the stability and safety of a government of the people founded 
on the principles of piety, education, and equality. 

I trust, therefore, tliat Monday, the twenty-fifth day of October 
current, will not pass altogether without observation of the events it 
commemorates; that our clergymen and teachers will call attention to 
them; that flags will be hung out, and that a grateful people will 
thank God for the beneficent constitution, the wise laws, the religious, 
civil, and social blessings under which tliey live in a Commonwealth 
than which there is none more favored in all the world 

Given at the Executive Chamber this eighteenth day of October, 
in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eighty. 

JOHN 1) LONG. 

By his Excellency the Governor. 

Henry B. Peirce, 

Seci-etary of the Commonwealth. 

God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 



49 



PROCEEDINGS 

BY THE GOVERNOR AND COUNCIL OF THE 
COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

The national flags were displayed upon the State House 
during the day. At two o'clock in the afternoon a large 
number of gentlemen assembled in the Executive Cham- 
bers by invitation of the governor. Among those invited, 
most of whom were present, were the following : — 

His Honor Lieut.-Gov. Byron Weston and Hon. Fred- 
erick O. Prince, Mayor of Boston. Hon. Messrs. Brayton, 
of Fall River ; Taylor, of Boston ; Heywood, of Con- 
cord ; Wallace, of Fitchburg ; Carter, of Cambridge ; 
Raymond, of Salem ; Edwards, of Northampton ; and 
Spaulding, of Boston, of the Executive Council. Hon. 
Messrs. Henry B. Peirce, Secretary of State ; Charles En- 
dicott. Treasurer ; Charles R. Ladd, Auditor ; George 
Marston, Attorney-General ; Ex-Governors Claflin, Gas- 
ton, and Talbot. [Ex-Governors Boutwell, Banks, Bul- 
lock, Washburne, and Rice were unable to be present.] 
Hon. Messrs. Horace Gray, James D. Colt, Seth Ames, 
Marcus Morton, William C. Endicott, Otis P. Lord, and 
Aug. L. Soule, of the Supreme Judicial Court. Hon. 
Messrs. Lincoln F. Brigham, Julius Rockwell, John P. 
Putnam, Francis H. Dewey, Ezra Wilkinson, Robert C. 
Pitman, John W. Bacon, William Allen, P. Emory Al- 
drich, Waldo Colburn, and William S. Gardner, of the 
Superior Court. Hon. Thomas Russell, of the Board of 
Railroad Commissioners ; Albert Mason, of the Harbor 
and Land Commissioners ; Julius L. Clarke, of the Insur- 
ance Commissioners; and Mrs. Ellen C. Johnson, of the 



Note. — The proceedinars at the State House, as well as those at 
the City Hall, are here introduced as matters of historical interest. 



50 

Prison Commissioners ; Hon. Carroll D. Wright, of the 
Census Bureau. Major-Gen. Berry, Adjutant-General ; 
Brigadier-Gen. Moore, 1st Brigade ; Brigadier-Gen. Sut- 
ton, 2d Brigade; and Lieut.-Col. Edmands, 1st Corps of 
Cadets ; Col. William M. Olin, Private Secretary. Hon. 
Messrs. Charles F. Adams, George B. Loring, President 
Eliot, of Harvard College, Charles J. Noyes, R. R. Bishop, 
Marshall P. Wilder, William W. Wheildon, Rev. Dr. 
Henry A. Miles of Hingham, and Dr. Samuel A. Green. 

At two o'clock his Excellency Governor Long entered 
the Executive Chamber, accompanied by the Rev. Mark 
Hopkins, D.D., formerly President of Williams College, 
and, having called the meeting to order, spoke as fol- 
lows: — 

REMARKS OF GOVERNOR LONG. 

I have called this meeting of the Council, and invited 
also the attendance of the representatives of the legisla- 
tive, executive, and judicial departments, for the purpose 
of commemorating the adoption of the Constitution of 
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the assembling on 
the twenty-fifth day of October, 1780, — a hundred 3-ears 
ago, — of the first General Court and the organization of 
the government, John Hancock governor. No provision 
has been made by legislative action for an extended cele- 
bration, but it seemed to me that the occasion should not 
pass without recognition ; that we should express our 
gratitude to the men and the spirit that founded the Com- 
monwealth ; that we should recognize our happiness and 
our responsibility as its citizens, and that we should em- 
phasize afresh the foundations on which it was set a 
hundred years ago, and upon which it will endure for 
time to come. 

The exercises here will therefore be the simplest, con- 
sisting of your presence and a prayer to Almighty God, 
to whom our fathers looked as the *' Great Legislator of 
the Universe." To offer that prayer I have invited a 
venerable clergyman of the Commonwealth, who was for 



51 

many years the head of one of its colleges, and who, in 
his teachings, now diffused and felt throughout the Re- 
public, and in his long life, so useful and honorable, has 
taught and exemplified those principles of piety, religion, 
and morality, of equality and education, of human free- 
dom and dignity, which inspire and which are the consti- 
tution we commemorate, — the Rev. Dr. Mark Hopkins. 

PRAYER BY THE REV. DR. HOPKINS. 

Our Father and our God, we, who have assembled be- 
fore thee at tiiis time, come in the name of our blessed 
Lord and Saviour, beseeching thee to grant unto us the 
presence and aid of thy Holy Spirit, that we may be 
enabled to worship thee and to express before thee our 
thanksgivings and joy to thy acceptance, and in accord- 
ance with thy mind. 

We thank thee that thou didst put it into the hearts of 
thy servants who represent the authorities of this State, 
— the governor, the lieutenant-governor, the councillors, 
the judges and officers of the State, — to come together 
to acknowledge thee, the Lord our God, as the God of 
nations and of States ; to thank thee for all that thou hast 
done for us in the past, and to supplicate the continuance 
of those blessings which thou hast granted unto us, in the 
time to come. As it pleased thee in old time to bring 
thine ancient people out from under bondage, and to lead 
them through the wilderness to the land which should be 
to them for a possession and a land of rest, so it pleased 
thee to bring our fathers out from under persecution and 
religious thraldom into a land of liberty, civil and reli- 
gious, and to lead them through the dangers of the sea, 
through the perils of a wilderness unknown, through want 
and famine and labor, of which we know in these days 
nothing, and to bring them into the possession of bless- 
ings unknown to former time. We remember, before thee, 
the days of peril, of weakness, and of trouble, and we re- 
joice and give thanks in view of all that thou didst do for 



62 

our fathers in the times that are passed. We thank thee 
that in due time they were separated from the mother 
country, and permitted to govern themselves; and tliat 
this Commonwealth, in connection with other associate 
colonies, has now become, before thee, a great nation. 
But we would especially, our God, give thanks before 
thee at this time for that constitution which was adopted 
a hundred years ago, and under which the people of this 
Commonwealth have enjoyed so many and so great bless- 
ings. We thank thee for the libert}'- we have enjoyed, for 
a constitution which has given us our governors from 
ourselves, and our laws from those whom we have ap- 
pointed to make them ; and we thank thee for our schools 
and our colleges, and for all the means of education and 
enlightenment, and especially for that religious freedom 
by which every man has been permitted to worship thee 
according to the dictates of his own conscience. Blessed 
be thou, O Lord God, for the wisdom that thou didst give 
unto our fathers in framing this constitution, and for the 
prudence which thou hast given to their successors in 
amending it, so that now it stands as the bulwark of our 
rights and the charter of our freedom ! 

And now, merciful God, we confess before thee our 
unworthiness of these blessings which thou hast bestowed 
upon us. Great and marvellous is thy goodness ! And 
now, as thou hast granted us these blessings, and mightest 
rightfully take them away, we plead before thee for thy 
great name's sake, who hast done so much for us, and for 
the sake of Him through whom all our blessings come, 
that these great mercies and blessings may be continued 
to us in the time to come. To this end, merciful God, we 
pray for thy servant the governor of this State, and for 
all who are associated with him in authority, that thou 
wouldst bestow upon them divine wisdom and grace and 
favor and strength, that thou wouldst be with them in 
connection with every emergency and every duty, and that 
they may fulfil in wisdom and fidelity the great duties 
which devolve upon them. We pray that thou wouldst 



53 

be with them in succeeding days, and bring them, if it 
pleases thee, to a good old age, and to peace at the end. 

And, merciful God, we pray especially before thee for 
this people. We cannot pray for prosperity to a wicked 
people ; but we do pray that this people whom thou hast 
so highly favored, on whom thou hast bestowed privileges 
unknown in former generations, may be a great and under- 
standing people. We beseech thee that they may appre- 
hend rightly the privileges which they enjoy, that they 
may know how to use liberty ; we pray that they may be 
an enlightened people ; we pray that they may be a tem- 
perate people ; we pray that they may he an honest people ; 
we pray that they may be a pure people, preserving all the 
institutions of marriage, and all the social organizations in 
the method which thou liast appointed. We pray that 
they may be a sabbath-keeping people. We beseech thee, 
merciful God, that thy sabbath may be a delight to this 
people, the holy of the Lord, honorable. We pray thee 
that this people may be a people who shall be worthy to 
receive that which has come to them, the inheritance of 
the ages. Lord God, we beseech thee, that as thou hast 
poured upon us the riches of all time, as thou hast given 
us command, unknown before, over the forces of nature 
and over all the wealth of the past, so we may not follow 
the example of those who have gone before, and sink into 
sensuality and ignorance and inefficiency and vice ; and 
we pray that, with thy mercies, the knowledge, the integ- 
rity, the principle, the industry, the power, of the people, 
may be augmented, and that they may grow up and stand 
before thee, a people whose God shall be the Lord. As 
thou hast brought us into a new world, so we pray that 
there may not come into this new world the incumbrances 
and weights which have borne down mankind in the old 
world. We pray that the tyrannies of the old world may 
not come upon it, nor its superstitions, nor its formalism, 
nor its unequal division of those good things which belong 
in common to all, nor any permanent division of ranks 
among men ; but that here men may be respected as men ; 



54 

that here all useful occupations may be honored ; that 
here industry, in every form, may rejoice ; that here 
man, as in the image of God, may be honored ; that all the 
institutions of society, may be built up in the spirit and 
on the principle of the gospel of our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ. 

And, merciful God, we pray not for ourselves only, but 
for the whole people. We bless thee that thoii didst 
permit us to be a united people, and we thank thee for 
thy favors to us in this regard, in the times past. And 
now we pray thee that thou wilt be with thy people in 
connection with the present choice of a Chief Magistrate, 
and that they may act wisely and truly, and that their 
choice may be one which thou wilt approve and bless. 
And we pray that this Commonwealth may be a worthy 
part of the commonwealth of States, and that all these 
commonwealths may be united in principle that should be 
accordant with the principle which thou hast manifested 
in thy kingdom, and may hold together and become a 
great nation, the light of all nations. And may this 
Union, which has been so signally preserved, be continued, 
and be a blessing till the end of time. And now, merciful 
God, we pray not for ourselves only, not for this Common- 
wealth only, not for this nation only, but with united 
hearts and united voices we would pray for all people in 
the words taught us by our Saviour, saying, " Our Father 
which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name ; thy kingdom 
come ; thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. 
Give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our debts as 
we forgive our debtors, and lead us not into temptation, 
but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the 
power and the glory forever. Amen." 



After the prayer, the Secretary of State pronounced 
the words, God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 
and the exercises were closed. A salute of one hundred 
guns, by the State battery, was fired at the conclusion of 
the commemorative service. 



65 



PROCEEDINGS 

OF 

THE CITY OF BOSTON. 



At a regular meeting of the Board of Aldermen, on 
Monday, Oct. 18, 1880, Alderman O'Brien, chairman, pre- 
siding, the following communication was received from 
the Mayor : — 

Mayor's Office, City Hall, \ 
Boston, Oct. 18, 1880. ) 
To the Honorable the City Council. 

I transmit herewith for your consideration a communication from 
the New England Historic Genealogical Society, relative to the pro- 
posed observance of the centennial anniversary of the adoption of the 
constitution and the organization of the State Government, on the 25th 
of October, 1780; and I respectfully suggest the propriety of placing 
such decorations upon the Old State House building as may seem 
appropriate, in commemoration of the important events in the history 
of Massachusetts, which took place in that building on that day. 

FREDERICK O. PRINCE, Mayor. 



Society's House, j 

18 Somerset Street, Boston, Mass., [ 

Oct. 14, 1880. ) 

To his Honor Frederick O. Prince, Mayor, and the City Council of 
Boston. 
Gentlemen, — His Excellency the Governor, having signified to us 
his intention to observe the approaching centennial anniversary of the 
adoption of the constitution and the organization of the State Govern- 
ment, on the 25th of October, 1780, when John Hancock was 
inaugurated as Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 
the Old State House, now the property of the city of Boston, we ask 
leave to suggest the propriety of designating that building as may be 
thought proper on the same occasion. Within its walls, in the year 
1774, Gen. Gage read his commission as governor of the colony and 



66 

commander-in-chief of his Majesty's forces in America, and six years 
thereafter John Hancock, who, as commander of the " Governor's 
Independent Company of Cadets," had escorted him to the State 
House, and was soon thereafter dismissed from office, occupied the 
same hall for the delivery of his inaugural address as Governor of an 
Independent Commonwealth. Hoping that his Excellency the Gov- 
ernor may have an opportunity to visit this venerable building wherein 
one hundred years ago the first State Government was organized, we 
remain, very respectfully yours, &c., 

WM. W. WHEILDON, 
In hehalf of the Committee of the N. E. His. Gen. Society. 

Eef erred to Joint Committee on Public Buildings, with full power. 



The Old State House was handsomely decorated with 
flags, having the Arms of the State and the Pine-Tree flag 
over the balcony. On the west end of the edifice, on 
Washington Street, was the inscription : — 

IN THIS BUILDING, ON THE 25TH OF OCTOBER, 1780, 
WAS ORGANIZED THE FIRST FREE AND INDEPENDENT 
GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE. 

At the east end of the building, on State Street, was 
the following : — 

1780. 

ADOPTION OF THE STATE CONSTITUTION. 
JOHN HANCOCK, GOVERNOR. 



APPENDIX. 

HISTORICAL SKETCH, 

1630-1780. 

BY WILLIAM W. WHEILDON. 

It is a little remarkable at this peiiod, when centennials 
are so much thought of and so frequently celebrated, that 
the completion of the first century since the adoption of 
the Constitution of the State should not even have been 
mentioned during the year, up to the present time. In 
1780 the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachu- 
setts was made by a general convention, and adopted by 
the people. The government of the colony had been con- 
tinued, as far as practicable, in conformity with the char- 
ter of 1692, without a governor or deputy governor, after 
Gov. Gage and Gen. Howe had left the colony. The 
great event we have mentioned, it will be seen, was 
reached in the period of one hundred and fifty j-ears from 
the settlement of the colony, and one hundred years ago 
on the 25th of the present month; and that day will be the 
centennial anniversary of the adoption of the State Consti- 
tution and the organization of the State Government, with 
John Hancock as its first governor. 

FOUNDING OP THE STATE. 

The settlement and naming of Boston, together with 
Dorchester and Watertown, on the arrival of Gov. Win- 
throp, with the charter, on the 17th of September, 1630, 



Note. — This paper was published on the 3d of October to call 
attention to the Centennial, and as it contains a statement of many 
important historical facts, it is here reproduced as a valuable adden- 
dum to the Society's proceedings. 



58 

may very properly be assumed as the founding of the 
State, notwithstanding the prior arrival of some of the 
party at Salem and Charlestown. Here, in Boston, it was 
at once understood, a permanent settlement was to be 
made, and the very naming of the town was a confirma- 
tion of the act. "It is ordered that Tri-mountain shall be 
called Boston; Mattapan, Dorchester; and the town upon 
Charles River, Watertown." This was the act of the 
court of assistants, on the 7th (17th) of September. 

The great celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth 
anniversary of the settlement of Boston, was, therefore, 
equally that of the foundiiig of the State, which has 
gradually grown up to the present Commonwealth from 
the settlement of the Puritans rather than that of the 
Pilgrims. 

FIRST CHARTER. 

The first government of the settlement was under the 
charter granted by King Charles to Sir Henry Rosewell 
and five others in the eighteenth year of his reign, 1628- 
29. It w^as through the influence of the Puritans, and, as 
it is now understood, at the instance of Rev. Mr. White, 
that this charter was obtained by his friends of Dorches- 
ter, where he lived and preached, when allowed to do so. 
Through his influence the patentees became acquainted 
with several leading men among the dissenters in and 
near London, and an association was formed, whereby 
three of the original patentees (Rosewell, Young, and 
Southcote) sold their interest in the patent to five other 
associates, who became its proprietors, in connection with 
the remaining original patentees. John Endicott was one 
of the six original patentees named in the charter; and he, 
together with Isaac Johnson, Mathew Cradock, Thomas 
Goffe, and Michael Saltonstall (the five associates named), 
are named in the confirmatory charter of March 4 (15), 
1628, and these controlled the charter in the interest of 
the Puritans. Under this charter the Puritan government 
was conducted for more than half a century. 



59 

This charter was annulled by the court of chancery in 
England, 18th of June, 1684, and a copy of the judgment 
was received at Boston, 2d of July, 1685. The king there- 
upon assumed the right to appoint the governor, and 
temporarily gave a commission to Joseph Dudley to act as 
president, not only of Massachusetts Bay, but also of New 
Hampshire, Maine, and the Narrangansett country, or 
king's province. William Stoughton was deputy presi- 
dent. These commissions were received at Boston by the 
"Rose" frigate, May 15, 1686. The council consisted of 
fifteen members. 

GOV. ANDROS. 

On the 19th of December, 1686, Sir Edmund Andros 
arrived with a commission as governor, which embraced 
the whole of New England, and by this Massachusetts 
and Plymouth became united under one government. In 
1688, the authority of Andros, as governor, was extended 
over New York. Andros was well received at first, but 
soon lost the respect and confidence of the people over 
whom he reigned. The office of "sheriff" was created 
under him, probably as a means of serving his own pur- 
poses and facilitating his own ends ; and he changed the 
form of administering oaths, previously required " by the 
book," and now by holding up of hands ; and some of his 
council were allowed to make affirmation under the 
penalties of perjury. Under his government the people 
were relieved of any share in it, and both judges and 
juries were pretty much under his control or within his 
reach. In a very remarkable case, that of Rev. Mr. Wise, 
of Ipswich, who complained of his arrest and the refut5al 
of a writ of habeas corpus, Andros replied to him : " Mr. 
Wise, you have no more privileges left you than not to be 
sold as slaves." The people thought, and had good reason 
to think, this was so, and even the last privilege might be 
taken from them ; so they at once took the matter into 
their own hands. 



60 



THE ANDROS REVOLUTION. 



The next year, the people becoming incensed against 
the autocratic governor, the Andros revolution occurred 
on the 19th of April, 1689. When the furor of the people 
was manifested, Andros fled into the fort on Fort Hill, 
and was taken from thence to the house of Mr. Usher, 
where he was placed under guard until the people de- 
manded his imprisonment. In August, he contrived to 
escape, and got as far as Newport, where he was arrested, 
and returned to prison in Boston. In February, 1690, he 
was sent to England, by order of the king, and from that 
time ceased to have any connection with New England. 
As an excuse for the conduct of Andros, it is said he was 
" the viceroy of a contemptible tyrant." The revolution 
was begun and completed in a few hours' time, and wholly 
without bloodshed. 

^ Upon the breaking out of the revolution and the im- 
prisonment of their rulers, the people were, in fact, with- 
out law and without government. But the habits of good 
order, the necessity of immediate action, and their 
cherished attachment to their former charter, led at once 
to the adoption of measures to continue the institutions of 
government, and to restrain any outbreak of the multi- 
tude." Mr. Bradford was chosen president of the council, 
and on the 2d of May they recommended to the towns 
the election of deputies, to meet on the 9th of May. The 
government was finally settled in form, agreeably to the 
charter, on the 24th of May, 1689, and on the 5th of June, 
a new House of Representatives assembled in Boston. 
" The charter magistrates were re-elected, and the admin- 
istration of political affairs went on in the colony as it had 
done before the revocation of the charter." 

THE SECOND CHARTER. 

The government was carried on under Gov. Bradstreet, 
then at the age of eighty-seven years, until the arrival of 
Gov. Pbips with the new charter, called the second char- 



61 

ter, on the 14th of May, 1692. He was followed by 
Stougliton, as acting governor in 1694, then the Earl of 
Bellamont, for one year, then Stoughton as governor in 
fact ; then we have the council, and so on through a suc- 
cession of governors and the council, until 1760, when 
Bernard comes to the chair, and under his administration, 
extending to 1769, the revolutionary troubles began. 
Hutchinson follows, the difficulties increase, for, after the 
Stamp Act in 1765 comes the Boston massacre, destruction 
of the tea, and Gen. Gage in May, 1774, when it may be 
said the revolutionar}' war commenced, and led to the 
organization of a Provincial Congress for the government 
of the colony. Gage having discarded the last General 
Assembly, at Salem, in October, 1774. 

THE PROVINCIAL CONGRESS. 

After the dissolution at Salem, a Provincial Congress, 
agreeably to the action of the several county conventions 
and the votes of the people at the polls, assembled at 
Concord, to the number of about two hundred and eighty 
members, on the 11th day of October, 1774. The Pro- 
vincial Congress, together with its Committee of Safety, 
continued to direct the aifairs of the colony, while there 
was neither governor, deputy-governor, council, nor gen- 
eral court, until July 19, 1775, when a new assembly was 
chosen, and the government carried on as far as practica- 
ble according to the second charter. 

TEMPORARY CIVIL GOVERNMENT, 1775 TO 1780. 

More than a year prior to the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, and a month before the battle of Bunker Hill, the 
Provincial Congress of Massachusetts had before it the 
subject of the establishment of a civil government. 

On the 8th day of May, 1775, less than a month after 
the expedition of Gen. Gage to Concord, the matter, 
which was to be considered on Tuesday, the 9th, was 
postponed until Friday, the 12th, and on that day the 
House resolved itself into a committee of the whole "for 



62 

consideration of the question in debate." At the close of 
the debate the president resumed the chair, when " Hon. 
Joseph Warren, their chairman, reported that a committee 
be raised for the purpose of reporting to the Congress an 
application to the Continental Congress for obtaining 
their recommendation for this colony to take up and ex- 
ercise civil government as soon as may be, and that the 
committee be directed to ground their application on the 
necessity of the case ; which report, being read, was ac- 
cepted by a very large majority, whereupon it was 
Ordered, that the president. Dr. Church, Mr. Gerry, Col. 
Warren, Mr. Sullivan, Col. Danielson, and Col. Lincoln, be 
a committee to prepare an application agreeably to said 
report." 

APPLICATION TO THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 

On the 15th of May, a resolve was passed that Dr. 
Church proceed immediately to Philadelphia, and deliver 
to the President of the Continental Congress the letter 
which had been prepared, and also to confer with the 
said Congress respecting the defence of the colony, and 
other matters. The letter was dated on the 16th, and 
rehearses the condition of affairs in the colony, and con- 
cludes as follows : — 

"We are happy iu having an opportunity of laying our distressed 
state before the representative body of the continent, and humbly 
hope you will favor us with your most explicit advice respecting the 
taking up and exercising the powers of civil government, which we 
think absolutely necessary for the salvation of our country ; and we 
shall readily submit to such a general plan as you may direct for the 
colonies, or make it our great study to establish such a form of gov- 
ernment here as shall not only most promote our advantage, but the 
union and interest of all America." 

The concluding paragraph suggests the propriety of 
Congress taking the regulation and general direction of 
the army now collecting from different colonies for the 
general defence of the rights of America. 

On the 2d of June, the President (John Hancock) laid 



63 

the letter before Congress, and Dr. Church was introduced ; 
and on the next day a committee of five persons was chosen 
by ballot, and the matter referred to them. The com- 
mittee were J. Rutledge of South Carolina, Johnson of 
Maryland, Jay of New York, Willson of Pennsylvania, 
and Lee of Virginia. 

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE. 

On the 7th of June, ten days before the battle of Bun- 
ker Hill, this committee reported, and thereupon, on the 
9th, the Congress " resolved that no obedience was due 
to an act of parliament altering the charter, nor to a gov- 
ernor or lieutenant who would not observe it, and, there- 
fore, that these officers were to be considered as absent, 
and their offices vacant. And further, as there was no 
council, and Gen. Gage was carrying on war against his 
Majesty's peaceable and loyal subjects, that, in order to 
conform, as near as may be, to the spirit and substance ( f 
the charter, it be recommended to the provincial conven- 
tion to write letters to the inhabitants of the several 
places, which are entitled to representation in assembly, 
requesting them to choose such representatives, and that 
the assembly, when chosen, do elect councillors, and that 
such assembly or council exercise the powers of govern- 
ment until a governor, of his Majesty's appointment, will 
consent to govern the colony according to its charter." 

ELECTION OF REPRESENTATIVES. 

In obedience to this recommendation of the Continental 
Congress, a letter was immediately prepared, June 19, 
1775, calling upon the local authorities of the towns in 
the colony to elect representatives to the General Court 
or Assembly, to serve for and represent them until the day 
next preceding the last Wednesday in May next, if neces- 
sary, to assemble at the meeting-house in Watertown, 
upon Wednesday, the nineteenth day of July ensuing 
Thus, so promptly did the Provincial Congress act in the 
matter, that, in less than ten days after the resolve passed 



64 

the Continental Congress, the order for the election of 
representatives, to meet in one month, was sent to the 
towns, and elections accordingly held at such times as 
the town authorities directed. It may not be generally 
known that at this time the Boston town meeting, for the 
election of representatives, was held at Concord, Boston 
being in possession of the British army. 

Thus was established a temporary civil government, 
more nearly in conformity with the charter of the colony 
than a Provincial Congress, although chosen by the people 
in the same manner, but differing mainly in the restora- 
tion of the Council, which exercised, the powers of gov- 
ernor and deputy governor, while the officers of the Crown 
were regarded as absent. This government continued un- 
til 1780, — just one hundred years ago the present month. 

THE STATE CONSTITUTIOlSr. 

At a meeting of the General Court, in June, 1777, 
nearly a year after the Declaration of Independence 
(which was publicly celebrated in Boston the next month, 
by order of the Legislature), the House of Representatives 
and Council formed themselves into a convention for the 
purpose of preparing a constitution, or frame of civil gov- 
ernment for the State, the former General Court having 
advised the people to elect representatives with this object 
in view. It is to be noted that, though most of the repre- 
sentatives were elected with this view, Boston and other 
towns were opposed to it, and thought a convention ought 
to be called composed of delegates for the express purpose 
of preparing a form of civil government. 

In December, 1777, however, the committee reported 
the instrument which had been prepared by them, under 
the instructions of the legislative convention, but it was 
not considered by the General Court until February, 1778. 
In March it was approved, and ordered to be submitted to 
the people, two-thirds of the votes of the people being re- 
quired for its adoption, all free males of the age of twenty- 
one years being allowed to vote. For some reason, per- 



65 

haps that already suggested and propagated in Boston, 
viz., that a special delegate convention should be called 
for the purpose, the constitution was not adopted, there 
being (as stated, probably, in a general way) ten thousand 
votes against it, and only two thousand in its favor, one 
hundred and twenty towns making no returns. The citi- 
zens of Boston voted unanimously against it. There ap- 
pears to have been some serious objections to the instru- 
ment itself. 

CONVENTION PROPOSED. 

After this experience and its result, the General Court 
of 1779 again proposed to the people to form a constitu- 
tion of civil government. And now it was proposed that 
they should vote directly upon the question, the votes to 
be returned to the court in June, and, if a majority of 
them proved to be in favor of the measure, then precepts 
were to issue for the choice of delegates in September fol- 
lowing. The result was favorable to the proposition, al- 
though about one-third of the towns of the State, as it is 
called, or province, did not vote, or did not send in any 
returns. 

However, on the 17th of June, 1779, precepts were 
accordingly issued to all the towns for the election of dele- 
gates, to assemble at Cambridge, on the 1st of September. 
The members chosen assembled accordingly at the time 
and place appointed, and organized by the choice of Hon. 
James Bowdoin as president, and Samuel Barrett, secretary. 
Continuing in session until the 11th of November, the 
convention then adjourned to meet at the representatives' 
chamber, in Boston (at the old State House), on the 5th 
of January, 1780. The session continued until the 2d of 
March, when the form of a constitution was agreed upon, 
and a resolve passed for its submission to the people ; and 
the convention again adjourned to meet at the Brattle 
Square Church, in Boston, on the 7th of June, one year, 
less ten days, after the precepts were issued for the election 
of its members. 



66 



CONSTITUTION ADOPTED. 



At that time and place the convention again met, and 
appointed a committee to examine the returns of votes 
from the several towns, when it appeared that more than 
two-thirds of the votes were found to be in favor of the 
constitution ; and it was " resolved that the people of the 
State of Massachusetts Ba}^ have accepted the constitution 
as it stands in the printed form submitted to their revi- 
sion." In Boston, however, some suggestions were made 
in favor of an alteration in the 3d article of the Bill of 
Rights, which provides for religious instruction, "because" 
(it seems almost strange to say, in view of the early history 
of the Puritan reign, as we may call it, in the town) " they 
wished for perfect toleration, and for no degree of compul- 
sion in religious sentiments or worship." Nevertheless, 
they accepted the instrument as it was, as it provided that 
" no one should be molested on account of his religious 
opinions, and that no denomination of Christians should 
have any exclusive or peculiar privileges." 

Notice was officially given to the General Court of the 
acceptance of the constitution by the people, and that the 
convention, as authorized by the people in their returns of 
votes, be fixed upon the last Wednesday of October, for 
the organization of the government, agreeably to its pro- 
visions. The election of governor, lieutenant-governor, 
and senators, took place on the 1st of September, and the 
representatives were chosen in October, ten days previous- 
ly to the last Wednesday of the month, when, on the 25th 
of October, 1780, the General Court met at the State 
House, and organized the State Government under the 
constitution. John Hancock was elected governor, but 
no person was elected lieutenant-governor by the votes of 
the people. Thereupon the General Court elected James 
Bowdoin to that office. He declined the office, and James 
Warren was then chosen. He also declined, and finally 
Thomas Gushing was chosen, and accepted the office. 
Jeremiah Powell was elected president of the Senate, and 



67 

Caleb Davis speaker of the House of Representatives. 
The councillors were Samuel Holton, Azore Orne, James 
Prescott, Thomas Danielson, Nathan Gushing, Walter 
Spooner, Benjamin Chadbourne, and Moses Gill; John 
Avery, jun., secretary of the Gommonwealth. The gov- 
ernor made his inaugural speech a few days after the or- 
ganization. 

CONCLUSION. 

The first charter of the colony, dated in 1628, was 
brought over in 1630, and, until the arrival of the second 
charter, including the presidency of Dudley, &c., continued 
in force for sixtj^-two years. The second charter went 
into operation in 1692, and continued in force, and was 
practically followed after the Provincial Gongress, until 
1780, — a period of eighty-eight years, making one hun- 
dred and fifty years from the first settlement, — when the 
Gonstitution of Massachusetts was adopted, and the State 
Government organized on the 25Lh of October, 1780 ; so 
that the ensuing 25th of October will be the centennial 
anniversary of the organization of the first government of 
the Gommonwealth of Massachusetts. 



/; 



^•, .,/, 




mm 





■1^ 



